Journeys End by RC Sheriff :: English Literature

Journeys EndR.C Sheriff wrote Journeys eat up in 1928. The dawdle was written 10 yearsafter the war had finished to let peoples emotions feelings andemotions about the war settle down.The play is set get along the end of the war, in 1918, along the westernfront in France. Sheriff set the whole play in one setting so it iseasier to stage, it personalizes it, and it creates a palpate ofentrapment.The whole play is set in the trenches, which are very confined, dampand cold. They were most likely inhabited by rats and the dugouts mostlikely smelled.The final medical prognosis is set in the dugout, at dawn just before a Germanattack is expected. At he beginning of the motion-picture showThere is no sound except the distant mutter of the guns. But lateron in the sceneThere comes the faint whistle and thud of falling shells. Towardsthe end pf the scene the noise from the shells being droppedintensifies and continues like this until the end of the play.R.C Sheriff uses comedy in the pl ay to lighten the mood and to addrelief from the depression of war. The party scene was a scene whereeveryone forgot about the war and started to lighten up.At the beginning of this scene the audience most likely expects themood to be unsettled and things to be tense between the characters,this is because of the arguments that happened between the charactersthe night before.Towards dawn, the candles are no longer burning.Mason is framed in the doorway against the very lights.There comes the rasp of a striking match-a tiny flame- and a candlegleams.Mason the wakes Stanhope up. This depicting the way he is breaking thetension from the previous nights argument and how he is lighteningthe mood, be it with a hot cup of tea or with his tactful handling ofHibbert later on.In Journeys End the spark is very important because it outlineswhat kind of mood different parts of the scene are. For example, atthe start of Act 3 Scene 3, it is half past v on the morning theattack is expected. The l ighting would be very dark, creating adepressing atmosphere. Near the end of the scene, as Raleigh is dying,The faint rosy flicker of the dawn is deepening to an angry red.At this point the lights would slowly turn red, representing death,blood and pain.The audience think Hibbert is a coward, mainly because he tried to ohome, complaining of neuralgia, when he was fine at the party, and hetakes his time over everything he does.