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Journey's End

R.C. Sherriff

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1928

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Journey's End

If you are teaching R.C. Sheriff's powerful World War One play, our resources on characters, key quotations and themes will help to consolidate students' understanding. Use the revision resources and essay questions to prepare GCSE English Literature students for their exams.    

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Claire's Notes

Online english tutorials, for gcse and beyond, please subscribe to my channel to stay up to date with  my new video releases. it costs nothing but your support means everything.  , journey's end, act 1 detailed commentary and analysis (part 1).

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In this video, I discuss the first half of the Act from the rise of the curtain as far as Mason's second entrance (page 16 in the Heinemann Educational Books edition)

Act 1 Detailed commentary and analysis (Part 2)

In this video, I discuss the second half of the Act from Mason's second entrance (page 16 in the Heinemann Educational Books edition) as far as the fall of the curtain at the end of Act 1.

Act 2, scene 1 Detailed commentary and analysis

Act 2, scene 2, part 1: detailed commentary and analysis, act 2, scene 2, part 2: detailed commentary and analysis, act 3, scene 1: detailed commentary and analysis, act 3, scene 3: detailed commentary and analysis, act 3, scene 2: detailed commentary and analysis.

Movie Reviews

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An intelligent, meticulously crafted drama about British soldiers in the trenches of World War I, “Journey’s End” is the latest cinematic rendition of a play by a war veteran, R.C. Sheriff, which premiered in England in 1928 with Laurence Olivier in a lead role. While the play was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and has proved an admirably durable theatrical staple (I saw the hit Broadway revival of 2007), one might wonder why it would be made into a movie in the present day.

An obvious one-word answer: “ Dunkirk .” Although they concern different wars, the two movies plumb the innate drama, tedium and terror of soldiers on foreign soil bracing for an onslaught by overwhelming enemy forces. Intimate and verbal, though, Saul Dibb ’s film provides a satisfying antithesis to Christopher Nolan ’s macrocosmic, hyper-sensory view of war: it gives close and sustained attention to a handful of soldiers facing both an implacable foe and their own mortality.

Since its debut, Sheriff’s play has been praised for its precise, flavorful realism and avoidance of cliches and rhetoric. Unlike many literary and cinematic treatments that would come later, it’s neither staunchly “patriotic” nor polemically “anti-war.” Leaving aside the war’s political causes (aside from one character’s statement that it should never have happened), it focuses squarely on the certain individuals and their ways of dealing with a situation of impending catastrophe.

Simon Reade ’s script for the film preserves the play’s virtues while opening its action outward in appropriate and judicious ways: While most of the drama remains in the bunkers of the British forces, when the soldiers leap out of the trenches onto the battlefield, we see that, too.

The tale takes place in the spring of 1918 near St. Quentin, France. The war has already dragged out for nearly four years, with millions killed; it will grind on for more than a half-year longer, snuffing out countless lives as it does. There is, in other words, nothing either strategically or historically significant about the episode we witness; it’s just another horror in a seemingly endless succession of them.

The film escorts us into the battle zone following fresh-faced teenaged Second Lieutenant Raleigh ( Asa Butterfield ), who could have done his service in a safer place but instead has gone to some trouble to get assigned to the command of Captain Stanhope ( Sam Claflin ). Before the war, Stanhope was a senior boy at Raleigh’s school and enamored of his sister; the three spent holidays happily wandering England’s countryside, the younger man recalls.

The early scene where Raleigh encounters Stanhope for the first time in the unit’s underground HQ is one of the film’s most memorable. Instead of the warm welcome he expected from his admired older pal, Raleigh finds a changed man. Though respected by his soldiers, Stanhope is a stiff and troubled officer and hardcore alcoholic. Naturally he doesn’t like Raleigh seeing him like this, and fears the reports he might send his sister.

Stanhope (the role that launched Olivier) is the pivotal figure in this drama. The other main character, gentlemanly, bookish Lieutenant Osborne ( Paul Bettany ), has joined the unit just recently but seems to have already formed a solid bond with Stanhope, who obviously needs his steadying, sane friendship.

A side note: The first film version of “Journey’s End” was directed in 1930 by James Whale , who would direct “Frankenstein” the following year and whose troubled psychic life as a gay WWI veteran is the subject of Bill Condon ’s “ Gods and Monsters .” While rights issues have kept Whale’s “Journey’s End” long out of circulation, a friend who’s seen it told me it’s rife with homosexual subtext. Apart perhaps from a poignant scene where a drunken Stanhope implores Osborne to tuck him into bed, that’s not the case here.

Instead, the drama describes the tensions, anxieties and sustaining camaraderie that unite these men and their fellows—including stalwart cook Mason ( Toby Jones ) and battle-hardened Trotter ( Stephen Graham ) and Hibbert ( Tom Sturridge )—as they begin a week when they’ve learned a massive German offensive is expected to begin. All know that they will be neither be evacuated nor reinforced. They are simply sacrificial lambs of the most basic strategic sort, their deaths meant only to momentarily slow the advancing enemy.

A crucial turn at the film’s dramatic apex comes when the Brits’ commanders send down an order that the unit mount a party of two officers and ten men to dash across no-man’s-land in the face of enemy fire, grab any German soldier they can, and bring him back in hopes of extracting intelligence about the upcoming attack. Raleigh and Osborne are the officers chosen for the detail. The mission is almost assuredly suicidal, just as it is inevitably futile, since it can do little or nothing to affect the impending slaughter.

Dibbs does a fine job bringing a nuanced, realistic visual style to this venerable tale of war’s cruel and colossal wastes, and his actors are all first-rate, with Bettany a special stand-out. But though it proves the timelessness of Sheriff’s drama, the film doesn’t make a particularly strong case for why, “Dunkirk” apart, it should be considered more-than-usually relevant today.

Godfrey Cheshire

Godfrey Cheshire is a film critic, journalist and filmmaker based in New York City. He has written for The New York Times, Variety, Film Comment, The Village Voice, Interview, Cineaste and other publications.

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Journey's End (2018)

108 minutes

Sam Claflin as Captain Stanhope

Asa Butterfield as Raleigh

Paul Bettany as Osborne

Tom Sturridge as Hibbert

Toby Jones as Mason

Stephen Graham as Trotter

• R.C. Sherriff
• Simon Reade
• Natalie Holt

Director of Photography

• Laurie Rose
• Tania Reddin

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Journey's End

By r.c. sherriff, journey's end literary elements.

Tragic play

Setting and Context

The action in the play takes place in WWI British trenches over four days leading up to the battle of Saint-Quentin.

Narrator and Point of View

Tone and mood.

The tone is humorous and bleak; the mood is ominous.

Protagonist and Antagonist

Captain Stanhope is the protagonist; his main antagonists are Raleigh, Hibbert, and the colonel.

Major Conflict

The major conflict in the play is how to maintain sanity under the miserable and despair-inducing conditions of war.

The play reaches its climax when the German attack finally comes and Raleigh becomes paralyzed by a bombshell.

Foreshadowing

In the first act of the play, one of the soldiers warns Raleigh to prepare himself for a version of Stanhope he has never seen before. This foreshadows Stanhope's mercurial mood, a symptom of his PTSD.

Understatement

In the middle of the play, Osborne reads Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a famous children's book by Lewis Carroll.

Parallelism

Personification, use of dramatic devices.

Throughout the play, Sheriff uses the device of dramatic irony (i.e. letting the audience know more than the characters) by showing Stanhope and Osborne discussing Raleigh while he is off-stage.

Journey’s End Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Journey’s End is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

How does Sherriff create tension in the duologue between Osborne and Stanhope at the end of Act 1?

Stanhope meets the revelation that Raleigh has joined his company with unease. The presence of Raleigh introduces a new conflict to the play that involves the themes of heroism, alcoholism, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Stanhope knows...

What are Trotter's quotes showing his emotions?

From the text:

Trotter (throwing his spoon with a clatter into the plate) : Oh, I say, but dam!

Trotter : Well, boys ! ’Ere we are for six days again. Six bloomin’ eternal days. {He makes a calculation on the table.)

Trotter comes down the steps,...

How Sherriff presents the true horrors of was through the character of Raleigh?

The difference between the fantasy of war and its true, horrific and demoralizing nature is one of the play's major themes. The theme is most overtly revealed through Raleigh's character arc. When Raleigh first arrives, his boyish excitement at...

Study Guide for Journey’s End

Journey's End study guide contains a biography of R. C. Sherriff, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Journey's End
• Journey's End Summary
• Character List

Essays for Journey’s End

Journey's End essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of the play Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff.

• The Depiction of War in Journey’s End and Exposure
• How does Sherriff present Heroism in Journey's End?
• How Stanhope Generates Conflict in the Opening Act
• Comparison of the mental suffering created by war
• Human Decency in a World of Human Waste

Wikipedia Entries for Journey’s End

• Introduction
• Plot summary
• Productions (professional)
• Productions (amateur)
• Adaptations

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Journey’s End

R.c. sherriff, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions, osborne quotes in journey’s end.

OSBORNE: He’s a long way the best company commander we’ve got.

HARDY: Oh, he’s a good chap, I know. But I never did see a youngster put away the whisky he does. D’you know, the last time we were out resting at Valennes he came to supper with us and drank a whole bottle in one hour fourteen minutes—we timed him.

OSBORNE: I suppose it amused everybody; I suppose everybody cheered him on, and said what a splendid achievement it was.

HARDY: He didn’t want any ‘cheering’ on—

OSBORNE: No, but everybody thought it was a big thing to do. [ There is a pause .] Didn’t they?

HARDY: Well, you can’t help, somehow, admiring a fellow who can do that—and then pick out his own hat all by himself and walk home—

OSBORNE: When a boy like Stanhope gets a reputation out here for drinking, he turns into a kind of freak show exhibit. People pay with a bottle of whisky for the morbid curiosity of seeing him drink it.

OSBORNE: You may find he’s—he’s a little bit quick-tempered.

RALEIGH [ laughing ]: Oh, I know old Dennis’s temper! I remember once at school he caught some chaps in a study with a bottle of whisky. Lord! the roof nearly blew off. He gave them a dozen each with a cricket stump.

[OSBORNE laughs ]

He was so keen on the fellows in the house keeping fit. He was frightfully down on smoking—and that sort of thing.

OSBORNE: You must remember he’s commanded this company for a long time—through all sorts of rotten times. It’s—it’s a big strain on a man. […] If you notice a—difference in Stanhope—you’ll know it’s only the strain—

RALEIGH: It’s—it’s not exactly what I thought. It’s just this—this quiet that seems so funny.

OSBORNE: A hundred yards from here the Germans are sitting in their dugouts, thinking how quiet it is.

RALEIGH: Are they as near as that?

OSBORNE: About a hundred yards.

RALEIGH: It seems—uncanny. It makes me feel we’re—we’re all just waiting for something.

OSBORNE: We are, generally, just waiting for something. When anything happens, it happens quickly. Then we just start waiting again.

It was all right at first. When I went home on leave after six months it was jolly fine to feel I’d done a little to make her pleased. [ He takes a gulp of his drink .] It was after I came back here—in that awful affair on Vimy Ridge. I knew I’d go mad if I didn’t break the strain. I couldn’t bear being fully conscious all the time— you’ve felt that, Uncle, haven’t you? […] There were only two ways of breaking the strain. One was pretending I was ill—and going home; the other was this. [ He holds up his glass .] […] I thought it all out. It’s a slimy thing to go home if you’re not really ill, isn’t it?

OSBORNE: I remember up at Wipers we had a man shot when he was out on patrol. Just at dawn. We couldn’t get him in that night. He lay out there groaning all day. Next night three of our men crawled out to get him in. It was so near the German trenches that they could have shot our fellows one by one. But, when our men began dragging the wounded man back over the rough ground, a big German officer stood up in their trenches and called out. ‘Carry him!’—and our fellows stood up and carried the man back and the German officer fired some lights for them to see by.

RALEIGH: How topping!

OSBORNE: Next day we blew each other’s trenches to blazes.

RALEIGH: It all seems rather— silly , doesn’t it?

I was feeling bad. I forgot Raleigh was out there with Trotter. I’d forgotten all about him. I was sleepy. I just knew something beastly had happened. Then he came in with Trotter—and looked at me. After coming in out of the night air, this place must have reeked of candle-grease, and rats—and whisky. One thing a boy like that can’t stand is a smell that isn’t fresh. He looked at me as if I’d hit him between the eyes—as if I’d spat on him—

If you went—and left Osborne and Trotter and Raleigh and all those men up there to do your work—could you ever look a man straight in the face again—in all your life! [ There is silence again .] You may be wounded. Then you can go home and feel proud—and if you’re killed you—you won’t have to stand this hell any more. I might have fired just now. If I had you would have been dead now. But you’re still alive—with a straight fighting chance of coming through. Take the chance, old chap, and stand in with Osborne and Trotter and Raleigh. Don’t you think it worth standing in with men like that?—when you know they all feel like you do—in their hearts—and just go on sticking it because they know it’s—it’s the only thing a decent man can do.

OSBORNE: Haven’t you read it?

TROTTER [ scornfully ]: No!

OSBORNE: You ought to. [ Reads ] How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale? How cheerfully he seems to grin And neatly spread his claws, And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!

TROTTER [ after a moment’s thought ]: I don’t see no point in that.

OSBORNE [ wearily ]: Exactly. That’s just the point.

RALEIGH: Good God! Don’t you understand? How can I sit down and eat that—when—[ his voice is nearly breaking ]—when Osborne’s—lying—out there—

[STANHOPE rises slowly. His eyes are wide and staring; he is fighting for breath, and his words come brokenly .]

STANHOPE: My God! You bloody little swine! You think I don’t care—you think you’re the only soul that cares!

RALEIGH: And yet you can sit there and drink champagne—and smoke cigars—

STANHOPE: The one man I could trust—my best friend—the one man I could talk to as man to man—who understood everything—and you don’t think I care—

RALEIGH: But how can you when—?

STANHOPE: To forget, you little fool—to forget! D’you understand? To forget! You think there’s no limit to what a man can bear?