Preview

The Wars Timothy Findley Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1128 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Wars Timothy Findley Analysis
The novel by Timothy Findley called “The Wars” follows 19 year old Robert Ross as he spirals down a path of the rages and confusions of World War 1. Robert commits many violent and immoral acts. He is rude and aggressive throughout the book, and murders follow soldiers. Even with these character flaws, the reader still feels empathetic towards Robert. The reader is able to relate to him and understand the reasons for his actions. The author shows the inner battles going on in Roberts head while he's facing the real war. Robert’s actions can be seen as immoral and wrong, but the they don’t break the connection the reader has made with the character. Roberts character flaws are embedded into him and maintain consistent throughout the story. …show more content…
At the beginning of the book his mother ordered him to kill Rowena’s rabbits, but he couldn't do it. His impulsiveness came out as he followed the coyote instead of finishing his training for the night. This also foreshadows his disregard for military authority, and his habit of running from his responsibilities. Horses are the most common animal in the story around Robert. Even while Robert is obsessed with killing a man, he had a lot of trouble bringing himself to kill a horse. When he finally killed the horse, it remained with him and haunted him. The section of the story where Robert kills the German soldier is surrounded by the sound of a bird singing. The boy looking at the bird is the reason Robert shot, and the sound of the singing haunts Robert until he dies. Roberts character flaws parallel those of a wild animal. Blind rage, impulsiveness, and a strong survival instinct drive his actions. He is a soldier in a war zone, always alert, on both the battle field and his everyday life. Robert had urged Captain Leather to let him release the horses from the barn in a battle field, so that they wouldn't go with the barn if it was hit. He refused and when another soldier, Devlin tried to help, Leather shot him. The barn got destroyed and Robert was surrounded by dead and dying horses. He arose to put all the dying out of their misery, but saw Captain Leather, and killed him. “He stood where the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    World War II was a devastating war. The war affected so many people. People daily lives were affected by it like the teenagers in the the book A Separate Peace , where the teenage boys struggle with the concept of the war. In A Separate Peace John Knowles demostrats how the boys achieve a separate peace yet the setting and their behavior are tinged with war-like imagery.…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert is an innately kind person despite the fact he has had very few normal relationships. Everyone he has ever loved either can not return the sentiment or dies and leaves him alone in the world yet again. His first experience of lose is when his sister dies and he deals with this by going to war, and find what it is to be a man. This reaction is not unreasonable it just shows Robert is striving to be an outstanding citizen and deal with his loss. When Robert is on the boat to Europe, he is ordered to shoot a horse injured during a storm at sea. Robert is deeply conflicted, as an animal and nature lover, destroying something he cared for and attended to left him deeply torn. Roberts innocence is shown when he questions, "what ever it [is] you kill in wars," buy having to redder to "Chums" and an image of "a cowboy shooting a horse behind the ear" when it came time to kill the injured animal. Robert has no idea how to kill another living thing and it pained him to do so. Having to shoot the horse left him not only emotionally damaged, but physically as well, Robert injured his legs and had to be moved to the sick bay along with his good friend Harris. The already strong relationship between Harris and Robert only strengthened when they spent time in the Royal free Hospital. As Robert recovered Harris' only worsened, Robert continued to visit Harris,…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    War forces young soldiers to grow up quickly in Stephen Crane’s immortal masterpiece about the nightmare of war was first published in 1895 and brought its young author immediate international fame. Set during the Civil War, it tells of the brutal disillusionment of a young recruit by the name of Henry Fleming who had dreamed of the thrill and glory of war, only to find himself fleeing the horror of a battlefield. Shame over his cowardice drives him to seek to redeem himself by being wounded; earning what he calls the “red badge of courage.” Praised for its psychological insight and its intense and unprecedented realism in portraying the experience of men under fire, The Red Badge of Courage has been a bestseller for…

    • 1873 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    War has a tendency to bring out both the worst and best qualities of human beings. These conflicts and their resulting effects on people are often depicted in literature. One of the best examples of war literature is Erich Marie Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. All Quiet on the Western Front depicts the everyday struggles of German soldier Paul Baümer and his comrades. Throughout the war, the servicemen maintain a strong bond between with each other. However, this bond even extends to the enemy on occasion, showcasing the universality of humanity. Two key themes in All Quiet on the Western Front are comradeship and the universal nature of mankind, and Remarque often demonstrates this.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert Ross Project

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages

    After our group has fashioned Ross, our group has came up with a synthesis of what Findley wants us to understand about Ross as a character, the war and its effects on people in general through thel life size silhouette of Robert Ross. We portrayed Robert in a kneeling position as an intimate gesture of humble respect, emotions such as sincerity, remorse and also to associate him with reverence, submission. This renders a person defensless and unable to flee, just how the wars rendered the soldiers lives and the inevitable effects on the homefront.…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This story is about a nineteen year old soldier named Paul Baumer followed by his friends while at war and it shows how it effects each and every one of them physically and mentally.“We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.”(Remarque 13) World War I was a tragic war with more than 9 million soldiers dead, and roughly 21 million were injured in the end. Germany and France both sent millions of men between the ages 15-50 into the war. Throughout the book and the movie you can see and understand all of the tragic deaths that occurred on both sides of this war. Not only were there millions of deaths by the fighting but also many deaths by other things such as, soldier dying from lack of food, lack of reinforcements, rats running through the trenches, and lastly deadly gases in the air. Any soldier that actually did survive was considered “lucky” to Paul Baumer. “We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life.…

    • 964 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    We no longer believe that some subjects are more appropriate for literary treatment than others: nowadays, every human activity, no matter how banal or disgusting, offers itself as legitimate material for the imagination to work on and turn into art…. There seem to be some subjects, however, which have a built-in intransigence to literary treatment because their historical reality, overwhelmingly banal, perhaps, or overwhelmingly disgusting, surpasses anything that the creative imagination can make of them. Writers instinctively shun these topics, it seems to me, and rightly so. It takes considerable nerve, therefore, to do what Timothy Findley has done [in The Wars]—to write a novel squarely about the unspeakable reality of the 1914–18 war in order to make that reality even more unspeakably real. Having read it, we're meant to put his book down angered and disgusted once again by the sheer…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    War is often viewed as one of the most dangerous and brutal events ever created. It utterly destroys the humanity and mental state of soldiers fighting in the war. In All Quiet on the Western Front, a world renowned war novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the epigraph states that this novel “will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” Staying true to this quote, Remarque tells of the horrors of World War I and fittingly describes the effects that war has on humans through the eyes of the protagonist, Paul Bäumer. In his epigraph Remarque says, “this book is to be neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure.” Except for a few notable exceptions,…

    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” is what he is tapping into. The ravine (and the two sides of the ravine) forges the connection between man and beast. Where animals simply act out of bare necessities, humans have a capacity for emotion with regards to their decision. Separately, the darkness and the strange moonlight provide for an eventual mourning of both man (the child’s cries) and animals (the panthers and their cubs). Again, the connection is forged. Robert’s is using “Do Seek Their Meat from God” to point to the connection between man and animal and more specifically, the panther and the settler. By the end the lines are blurred as to who the reader should be sympathizing with due to the…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    At the commencing of the novel the soldiers were somewhat intrigued at the thought of going to war. Their teachers spoke to them of patriotism and war as a heroic deed in which the young boys should be eager to partake. The students were before war still naïve and had an innocent perception of war, but as the story continues we notice the transformation in the characters and their behavior. By entering actual fighting grounds and seeing the truth about what went on in battle the boys altered their view on war. Having seen so many casualties and deaths…

    • 2442 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    2.What is the narrator's attitude toward war? Does his attitude differ from the attitudes of the soldiers he is describing?…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In his confused, heartbroken state feels he must join the army in an attempt to help the world regain the innocence it lost with Rowena’s death. This is a bold move on Robert’s part and is characterized only by an individual who is no longer kind and endearing. To fight in war, you must be cold hearted and be able to take a life without feeling remorse. “In such a dangerous thing as war the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.” (Von Clausewitz, the Wars) Those…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Wars

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Family often has a great influence on the decisions of our lives. Parents often are the greatest external influences that we consider. Similarly in The Wars, Timothy Findley’s main character – Robert Ross’ parents influence his actions throughout the book. Mrs. Ross is portrayed as an adamant woman who is not very expressive of her love towards her children (especially Robert) because of societal norms but a gradual change is seen as the book progresses; On the other hand, Mr. Ross has always been an affectionate man towards his children and remains a constant character throughout the book.…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Wars by Timothy Findley is at first initially thought, a book about World War I but the pluralized title suggests that it is much more than that. With a closer look it becomes easier to recognize how structurally complex this novel is as it concerns itself around a number of ‘wars’. First, there is the raging war World War I, as well as domestic disputes within the Ross and d’Orsey families while the war rages, although there is still the internal struggle in which most characters face, most notably Robert. One of the most critical themes in this novel is the climatic change both Robert Ross and the society in which he lives undergo, as World War I overturns the past and destroys the fundamental and moral…

    • 1403 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Captain Leather is a commanding officer, he is one of the negative characters and he treats animals without humanity in the novel. When the barn yard is on fire, Robert’s first thought is the animals, and he wants to set the horses and mules free. However, Captain Leather tries to prevent Robert from freeing them, a hundred horses and thirty-five mules, and he does not even care about those real lives. He screams at Delvin, “‘Shut those God damn gates! Shut them! Shut them! You traitor’” (183). He is a selfish officer, and he is very cruel and merciless to animals.…

    • 1750 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays