Structuralism in Timothy Findley's The Wars

Structuralism and “The Wars” Timothy Findley was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He has written many novels such as The Last of the Crazy People and The Butterfly Plague. Findley also writes an extraordinary novel titled The Wars. This novel is about a young man whose name is Robert Ross and is on his way to war because he feels guilty about the death of his sister. Mentally and physically he is not ready for war because he feels much violated of his privacy. As Robert is in the war to end all wars, his family is going through hard times as well. Everyone sees things differently. Their beliefs and principles may be different from somebody else’s beliefs and principles. Someone may think or even say that a certain thing is wright however according to another person they make think it’s wrong. Likewise, there can never be just one truth; there are different perspectives on how individuals see things. The novel The Wars by Timothy Findley portrays many of these truths and proves that there is not just one truth but many truths. The idea of structuralism is that conscious experience can be broken down into basic conscious elements. All conscious experience must be described in its most basic terms. (Richard Hall) The structural criticism that is portrayed in The Wars by Timothy Findley trough symbolism, the encounter with nothingness and the theme of identity proves that there is not one truth in every text.
In chapter 2 of the beginning of the novel, the narration is told in second person. In the beginning of the book, an archivist is going through some old pictures. These pictures show the readers the captured life in these photographs. Also since the photographs are old it decays which symbolizes death. Since the old photographs decay, it shows that life can also decay which can cause death. “As the past moves under your fingertips, part of it crumbles.” (Findley, 7) There is a time and place for everything and it has all come to an end like the war. This