Journey's End and the Accrington Pals - Class System Essay Example
Explore the ways in which the class system is exposed in both Journey’s End and The Accrington Pals.
How far do you agree that Sherriff explores this aspect in his play more successfully than Whelan?
The theme of class is one that is important in both R.C.Sherriff’s Journey’s End and Peter Whelan’s The Accrington Pals. Class is explored through the use of characterisation, setting, structure, dialogue and also political ideologies. Both Sherriff and Whelan may have chosen to develop the class system to emphasise the change it has undergone since the war ended.
The Accrington Pals is a modern novel, first performed in 1982. As well as portraying the political views of the time, there are also echoes of Thatcherism. Whelan shows this conservative ideology through the character of May. May is a working-class stall owner who aspires to be middle-class and has middle-class ideals “they’re just waiting to see you stumble, slip back and be as they are. In the end it’s just you…yourself. We don’t create the rules of life. They’re there.” The same ideologies are hinted at in Sherriff’s Journey’s End. There were few plays written during the 1920’s that commented on political and social events and not a lot were very successful. Sherriff said in his autobiography that his characters were ‘simple, unquestioning men who fought the war because it seemed the only right and proper thing to do … (it was a play) in which not a word was spoken against the war … and no word of condemnation was uttered …’ What he hoped to do was to show ‘how men really lived in the trenches, how they talked and how they behaved.’
Although unintentional there is clear class distinction and, like The Accrington Pals, a conservative ideology. In both plays there are clear divisions between the middle and working classes, this is shown through characterisation. Sherriff exposes the class system through the use of his characterisation of the officers and serving soldiers, he portrays the officers
How far do you agree that Sherriff explores this aspect in his play more successfully than Whelan?
The theme of class is one that is important in both R.C.Sherriff’s Journey’s End and Peter Whelan’s The Accrington Pals. Class is explored through the use of characterisation, setting, structure, dialogue and also political ideologies. Both Sherriff and Whelan may have chosen to develop the class system to emphasise the change it has undergone since the war ended.
The Accrington Pals is a modern novel, first performed in 1982. As well as portraying the political views of the time, there are also echoes of Thatcherism. Whelan shows this conservative ideology through the character of May. May is a working-class stall owner who aspires to be middle-class and has middle-class ideals “they’re just waiting to see you stumble, slip back and be as they are. In the end it’s just you…yourself. We don’t create the rules of life. They’re there.” The same ideologies are hinted at in Sherriff’s Journey’s End. There were few plays written during the 1920’s that commented on political and social events and not a lot were very successful. Sherriff said in his autobiography that his characters were ‘simple, unquestioning men who fought the war because it seemed the only right and proper thing to do … (it was a play) in which not a word was spoken against the war … and no word of condemnation was uttered …’ What he hoped to do was to show ‘how men really lived in the trenches, how they talked and how they behaved.’
Although unintentional there is clear class distinction and, like The Accrington Pals, a conservative ideology. In both plays there are clear divisions between the middle and working classes, this is shown through characterisation. Sherriff exposes the class system through the use of his characterisation of the officers and serving soldiers, he portrays the officers