Journey's End (Penguin Modern Classics)

This play is not for everyone. It has a narrow setting—in one “room” of an officer’s dugout, in one English trench, in the lead up to the beginning of the last major German offensive of World War I. All of the action outside is presented indirectly, through the people who come into the dugout, and the lights and noise of the fighting outside. Most of the characters on stage are officers. The dialogue is rooted the English class system of its time.The characters and events fit common themes of portrayals of war: the officer changed by war, the eager young officer, the coward, the stable older man, the resourceful orderly, the dangerous mission and the mission oriented commander who requires that mission, regardless of the possible cost.What makes this play so special is how Sherriff portrays all of this in such a minimal space. The characters are well drawn, and the tension is maintained and increased in the lead up to the expected battle. The play moves forward on the dialogue and reports of the characters, rather than by portraying the events themselves. The relative calm of the dugout and the relative luxury of the officer’s quarters contrast with the fighting and harsh conditions outside.In sum this is a worthy read for any reader of war fiction, and especially those interested in World War I.

There's a reason this play has been around since the 1920s. I watched the new version and then was curious about the original. It's full of the weariness and the awfulness of war. What some men can tolerate, others can't and it's heartbreaking. There's the claustrophobia of the trenches, the sense of living literally like an animal and that it will never end. Very moving. I had to take a break before I could read the end because it's just so sad. Sounds weird in light of that to say I highly recommend it, but I do.

I picked up JOURNEY'S END because it was touted as "a great anti-war classic." It is a three-act play, set in a dugout in the British trenches in March 1918. C Company, commanded by Captain Stanhope, has just moved into the trenches for a six-day rotation. A major German assault is expected shortly, before C Company's six-day front-line tour is over. The entire play occurs in the dugout, although there are reports of various developments outside the dugout, as well as the sounds of artillery and machine-gun fire, eerie and flashing lights, and calls of "stretcher-bearer."Most of the play consists of exchanges among Stanhope and his four officers - Osborne, older and wiser and nicknamed "Uncle"; Trotter, fat, happy-go-lucky, and somewhat simple; Hibbert, scared to death and feigning neuralgia in an attempt to obtain a medical discharge; and Raleigh, freshly arrived at the front from public school, good-looking, eager, and innocent, and the brother of Stanhope's girlfriend back in England. As for Stanhope, he is both extremely dedicated and thoroughly jaded; he has been on the Western Front for three years and is on the verge of a break-down; the only way he lives through the constant strain is by being doped with whiskey. By the final curtain, the journey through life of two of the five principal characters has come to an end.The play touches on many of what are now conventional themes of British literature of the Western Front: vainglory; malingering; foolhardy missions; inflexibility and callousness on the part of the upper brass; rats and often execrable food; and boredom punctuated by moments of paralyzing fear. Other works, in my opinion, explore those themes better. Although I haven't read many plays in recent decades, I suppose JOURNEY'S END is a moderately effective play. It certainly has its dramatic moments, though I sense that at times it is a little forced or contrived, and at other times it seems to be somewhat heavy-handed.The playwright, R.C. Sherriff, served as a captain in the British Army in WWI. JOURNEY'S END was his first work to be performed. At the debut performance in 1928, Captain Stanhope was played by twenty-one-year-old Laurence Olivier. The play became an enormous success, and Sherriff went on to write numerous other stage plays and well as various screenplays, including the original "Goodbye Mr Chips".

I remember this play from when I was a boy of 9 or 10 (1929 or 30). The feelings I had about it then stayed with me for a long time, and have been revived by this rereading. The hopelessness of WW 1 is vividly expressed.

Powerful story about those in the trenches.Should be a book.

great play.

The theatrical power of "Journey's End" is only heightened by the humor in the details of each day's living in the face of certain death. The playwright's craft in characterization and circumstance raises the work past the "war play" genre to the level of human tragedy for its period and for all time. Lucky, too, for anyone interested, that there is a first-rate production on view this season (2005) at the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, just over the border north of Naigara Falls.

Human beings in a different time, a different place. Unlike the "warfare" that we know today, the few events are intensely personal.

Robert Cedric Sherriff certainly hits the spot with this, which was his play, based on his experiences in the First World War. Initially only shown for a performance in December 1928, after numerous others didn’t want to perform it, so Laurence Olivier starred, and it was directed by James Whale. It then went on for a two-year stint in another theatre the following year and was a success. Since then it has been performed in many other locations, both professionally and by amateurs, been filmed and shown on TV, as well as inspired many other writers up unto the present day, and so long may it continue to do so.Opening on the evening of 18th March 1918 (a Monday) in a dugout near St Quentin, so this proceeds up to dawn on the Thursday, where the Germans make a push. All of the play is performed in the dugout, and so the actual war is something that we only hear through explosions and noises and lights from off stage. As a relief takes place so Captain Stanhope, his officers and men take up position, with a new officer arriving, Second Lieutenant Raleigh, a former friend of Stanhope from school, and also the brother of Stanhope’s love interest.We hear of what is going to happen next, as certain decisions are made further up the chain of command, and what is thought about them. We also see how the different officers try to cope with their responsibilities and fears. Poignant and very powerful so this is told with a grim reality that strikes home and reminds us why soldiers can come back from wars radically altered.With the grimness of this we can see how well this has been crafted and can only marvel at the power of the story, one that is instantly memorable. With only the one setting so this manages to convey a whole war, without the use of numerous pages such as a novel gives us, and reminds us all of the sheer physical and mental damage that such things put on the human body, creating shells of the original characters.

A modern movie of Journey's End has just been released in the UK and I was recently privileged to view, quite frankly I was astounded by what I saw, so moved by this sober and thoughtful interpretation that I decided to acquire and read the original dramatic play published in 1928 by R C Sherriff who based his novel on his own experiences of life (if we can call it that) in the trenches of Northern France during the spring of 1918.At the start of world war 1 there appeared to be no shortage of young men following the advice from Lord Kitchener..."Your country needs you" These young romantic conscripts happily boarded troop trains heading for the trenches of St Quentin in northern France in order to fight for king and country. What they encountered was an entrenched position as two opposing sides faced each other across a muddy desolate no man's land. Life in the trenches was abominable. As well as the constant fear of mortars with the resulting shrapnel, soldiers cut to ribbons, muddy conditions giving rise to trench foot and a large expanding rodent problem. If we add to this the overzealous use of mustard gas then a picture reminiscent of a living hell is an apt description.Given these facts there seemed to be no shortage of volunteers eager to travel through this dystopian landscape where the average life expectancy of a soldier or officer was a mere six weeks. There was a total lack of reality in the minds of commanding officers quite happy to send millions of men to an untimely death cut down by machine gun fire, entangled in barbed wire, or simply blown to pieces by a direct shell hit. If we are to believe numerous accounts the stiff upper lip prevailed and the language of the time; rugger, chap, topping, jolly introduced a surreal quality to this living hell....."A dugout got blown up and came down in the men's tea. They were frightfully annoyed"...."He was the skipper of rugger at Barford, and kept wicket for the eleven. A jolly good bat, too"...I have been very moved by reading Journey's End and the final images instills a very sombre note. The book explores issues of friendship and comradeship, the desolation of the human mind under extreme conditions, the utter futility of war, and the senseless sacrifice of millions of lives by an inept leadership who was utterly blind to the realities of battle in the blood drenched battlefields of Northern France

Its easy to see Journey's End as something of a relic- a sort of 12 angry men (in a trench) with a lot of whiskey sodden talk from mainly upper class characters that provided ample and poignant source material for something like Blackadder Goes Forth, whilst also underpinning the lions led by donkeys school of WW1 History. Yet, on closely reading the play its clear that this is a carefully and cleverly constructed play (more than just well made) which tells a real story about officers whose life expectancy was around 6 weeks in WW1. It was also first produced in 1928, when the appetite for such a visceral and naturalistic version of WW1 must have been reluctant to retread the very real and recent memories of real events. In the centenary year of the end of WW1 it achieves a new resonance , both in highlighting Stanhope's despair and the loss of good men such as Osborne and the younger generation as epitomised by the tragically optimistic Raleigh- a spit of George in Blackadder Goes Forth, as is Mason the cook, a prototype Baldrick. Its a play that gives the Germans a relatively good press in a war where both sides suffered horrific losses. So, in truth a historical document (the writer RC Sheriff served in WW1); a theatrical tour de force and a powerful indictment of war and the societies that create it. This edition has useful notes for classroom use (it has been a set text in previous years) and is attractively produced. The writing, in theatrical terms echoes Rattigan, Pinter and Osborne amongst others. One can see why it is regarded as a classic of literature, whilst remaining a challenging and demanding piece to actually stage.

So strong is the characterisation in this play, that in the space of just 95 pages, I felt that I knew Stanhope and his officers personally. It gives a startlingly good impression of life in the trenches - with the contrast between periods of foreboding quiet and frenetic activity, but for me its particular strength is its exploration of the emotions experienced by the men: boredom, fear, loneliness, loss as comrades fall - and sometimes utter frustration at the need to carry out orders from above which will clearly have devistating results. I would now love to see the play performed.

I needed this book for my English Lit A-level spec, and actually loved reading it (like a novel). Would recommend to anyone - not just those who need to study this text! Portrays the reality of WW1, from the knowledge of a writer who fought in it.