Common Themes

Journey's End and Wilfred Owen Poems

Futility of War

Courage and Cowardice

Jounrye’s End

• Hibbert tries to fake neuralgia in order to be sent home from battle

• “another little worm trying to wriggle home” Stanhope about Hibbert

Community and Comradeship

Journey’s End

• while Stanhope clearly doesn’t like Hibbert he forms a false friendship with him in order to command him and tries to empathise with him

• despite calling Hibbert “a little worm” “an artful swine” he then offers to go on look out duty with him to see if they can “stick it out together”

• Osborne and Stanhope are very equal, Osborne cares for Stanhope and sympathises with his coping mechanisms, Osborne recognises how the weight of the war is getting to Stanhope but how under it all he is still a good person

• Osborne and Stanhope’s relationship is a great example of how the war brought many soldiers together, showcased when Osbonre put a drunk Stanhope to bed as he asks Osborne to “tuck him up” and when Osborne gives Stanhope his personal belongings before the raid, how he trusts him

• despite the fact that when Rayleigh turns up he finds Stanhope very different to before the war, he still stays loyal to him, not betraying him to his sister and continuing to look up to him, writing how “awfully proud to think he’s my friend”

Social Class

Innocence

Journey’s End

• when Rayleigh arrives in the trenches he’s very naive to what war has to offer, seeming excited by the fact he is on the front line

• Sheriff describes Rayleigh as a “youngster straight from school”, any soldiers were hardly more then children as they were so desperate for men it became easier and easier to lie to the recruitment office

• in contrast to Osborne, when he’s told about the raid Rayleigh speaks excitedly about the extremely dangerous task and seems to be looking forward to it

• the tone around innocence shifts after the raid in which Osborne dies and it provides a turning point for Rayleigh’s character where he changes from a a green, naive young boy to a war beaten soldier who has had his innocence and youth stripped away from him