Sheriff's Aims in Journey's End

Sheriff's Aims in Journey's End

What were Sheriff’s aims in writing Journey’s End and how successful

was he in achieving those aims?

Drama has been popular for ages because it is very entertaining.

Another important feature of a drama is that they provide a message.

‘Romeo and Juliet’ is one of the most popular dramas in the world and

is of a romance genre. It was written by the great writer,

Shakespeare in 1595. ‘Journey's End’ is a play which portrays a

picture of life in the First World War trenches. R C Sheriff’s main

aim was to provide a moral message and to show an effective piece of

drama. The drama also entertained the audience.

Sheriff has been very successful in providing a moral message to the

audience. He uses different ways to portray the message. One of the

ways is that he uses the characters, how they feel being in trenches,

with all the pressure and the bombarding. All the characters have the

'war fever', they don’t like living this way for too long, they are

all frightened and would prefer being home with their families. We

can see the fear clearly in the character of Hibbert when he says to

Stanhope "Go on, then, shoot! You won't let me go to hospital. I

swear I'll never go in those trenches again. Shoot! – and thank God

-"

One of Sheriff's main aims was to entertain the audience. He

entertains the audience by recounting his experience in the trenches

and the war. We also are educated as we are entertained. He also

uses black humour, which is entertaining for the audience. The humour

is used by the characters to forget about the real horrors of the war.

Sheriff also uses sound effects in a very effective manner, most of

the time it is silent, then suddenly you can hear the loud noises i.e.

bombarding. Sheriff also uses complex characterization to make the

play successful. The characters are different in every manner and

this adds to the entertainment. The audience realizes that there is

no glory in war and in reality; it is an evil which ultimately

destroys every person.

The play uses plenty of literary jargon, such as "dug-out, bit of

line, minnies, boche, trench fever and topping etc." All the military

terms used portray the effect of war and the sense of realism. The

language used in the play is mostly formal, as in when they use

"cheero, Righto, rugger etc". This is just the language used by the

upper-class people of the time. They are also using formal language

because the play is set in 1910.