51 pages • 1 hour read
Timothy FindleyThe Wars
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1977A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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War
The novel takes a consistently anti-war position. In the text, war is dehumanizing, barbaric, random, and vicious. The First World War is different, however, from conflicts that have come before, due to its scope and technological advancements. Many characters enter into the military with expectations of how the conflict will develop based on the comparatively “organized” Napoleonic era, believing that the war will be over by Christmas. Levitt, for example, reads old texts on the nature of war, only to find that all of the old writings are obsolete and inadequate, unable to provide an explanation or frame of reference for the situation Robert and the others find themselves in. War is hell, the novel suggests, but this new war is even more hellish than before.
The effect of war is not limited to men. In the text, men are the vicious enactors of the barbarism of war and then have a terrifying effect on nature. Rodwell countermeasures this, as he collects the stricken animals and tries to save them. Only his toad, an arguably ugly creature who thrives in swamps, survives a gas attack. The entire biosphere around the battlefield is destroyed and all but the animals most attuned to filth suffer due to man’s actions. This becomes too much for Robert and he decides that he needs to reclaim his humanity by freeing the animals trapped by war. His freeing of the horses is declared an act of treason, however. The horses burn to death and Robert is scarred for life. He is court martialed, a military retribution for daring to challenge war. Even though Robert tries to save the animals, he is punished and made to suffer. No matter what men do, the dominant theme of the viciousness of war remains.
War also affects the landscape. Robert tours behind the lines and witnesses the picturesque scenery after leaving the d’Orsey home. The little villages and towns seem beautiful and untouched by war. When he gets back to the front, it is completely different. He almost dies when he falls into the mud, and conditions worsen from that point on. The ground itself swallows him up. The craters and the uprooted trees drastically alter the landscape; The shape of the natural world is literally upended. They turn it into a barren wasteland devoid of life. War destroys humans, animals, and the entire world, the novel seems to suggest.
War is not limited to the battlefield. The title of the novel is plural, referring to the numerous “wars” that stem from the actual conflict. One of the ways in which the First World War changes everything is in bringing the war beyond France or Germany to Britain. The zeppelin bombing raids over London bring danger to those hundreds of miles away from the actual fighting. The novel makes this most explicit, however, when totaling up the number of dead. It makes sure to include those who died in Canada, stating that “so far, you have read the deaths of 557,017 people—one of whom was killed by a streetcar, one of whom died of bronchitis and one of whom died in a barn with her rabbits” (147). This demonstrates that war has become an all-encompassing concern. It is no longer limited to the battlefield. Instead, it touches everything and corrupts everything. War, as theme, infects every aspect of existence.
Family
The Ross family find themselves marked by great success and terrible tragedy. Though they are the owners of a successful business (whose tractors even make it as far as the European front of the war), the family has suffered. Rowena, for example, was born with “water on the brain” (17) and is confined to a wheelchair. Mrs. Ross is a heavy drinker and slowly descends into alcoholism, which accelerates her dementia. They may be successful, but they do not seem happy. Their happiest memories, in fact, are shared by Robert and Rowena. He dedicates his life to helping her, and when she dies, he lacks meaning. He does not get gratification from his family and feels no strong connections to any of them. The tragedy of the Ross family homelife foreshadows the tragedies Robert will witness at the front.
The second major family introduced into the novel is the d’Orsey family. In many ways, they are like an exaggerated version of the Ross family. They are even more wealthy and even more atomized. They live in a country manor and the family patriarch is openly committing adultery, which benefits his wife, who prefers him to be absent. Juliet is too young to really make an impact on the family, though her older siblings are struggling to come to terms with their own roles. Barbara becomes incensed at any situation in which she is not in control or centered. Like Robert, the male d’Orsey children find themselves swept up in the war and the rest of the family has little idea of how to cope with this. By the end of the novel, Robert and Juliet will have found solace in one another’s company. Their dysfunctional family, in many ways, are a common concern and a shared experience.
As well as biological families, there are also other family-like groups. The dugout functions as a makeshift family. The men are thrown together into a cramped space and find themselves relying on one another for support. Robert and Rodwell have a shared love of nature; though they might have little in common with Levitt, they share their home with him and are fiercely protective of him and Poole. They are less friends and more family, tolerable of one another differences rather than sympathetic to their likenesses. Robert, who comes from a dysfunctional home, finds a similarly atomized family in the dugout and—just like his life in Canada—it ends in equally tragic circumstances. Rodwell kills himself, Levitt falls victim to shellshock, and Robert is labelled a traitor after being horribly burned. The extent to which a family unit can (or cannot) protect an individual from chaotic Thanatos is woven tightly into the theme of war; in each instance, the families are destroyed by war and unable to recover.
History
The novel is an investigation of history. It explores the difficulty of putting together an objective version of the past using the various relics that are passed down and survive into the current age. The second person perspective addresses the reader as though they were a historian exploring Robert Ross’s life. To do this, the author uses historical artifacts. There are old archives, military reports, history books, family photographs, and many other documents that can piece together the various parts of Robert’s life. There are also interviews with people he met, though not many have survived the interim period between the end of the war and the beginning of the research. Robert’s life is detailed like a historical investigation, so the theme of history pervades his story.
The archival documents of Robert’s life provide an insight into his character, though a great deal of detail comes from the text projecting emotional context onto the photographs. The audience is told that they are looking at the picture and they are told what it depicts. From these physical objects, the text extrapolates emotions and thoughts. The audience is told what the smile on Robert’s face means and of the importance of a particular animal in the frame. This process inevitably involves some aspect of explicit subjectivity, implying that there is no way to find the objective truth about history. The novel portrays history as a matter of perspective, which calls into question the usefulness or significance of war. Like the men lost in the churn of war, the details of who is on whose side or what they are fighting for are forgotten amid the chaos.
Rather than historical accuracy, the novel strives for emotional accuracy. It presents Robert not as a historical figure, but as a thematic abstraction. The events of his life help to define the conclusions Robert reached. His actions were anti-war, so the novel is anti-war. True historical accuracy can never be attained and the pursuit of it becomes inconsequential. Given the way in which the details and different perspectives alter the audience’s opinion of Robert, there can be no way in which every detail and every perspective is properly captured. Thus, all that matters is being true to Robert’s broad emotional reality. In this way, subjective truth is more impactful and more effective than objective truth.
