R.C. Sherriff's play "Journey's End" tells the simple story of British officers in a dugout during World War I, yet it has complex characters and symbolism. Though the plot and dialogue are easy to follow, deeper analysis reveals layers of meaning. Stanhope appears a hardened drunk but struggles with fear and trauma. Time, represented by Osborne's watch, is precious for soldiers who may die at any moment. The confined dugout setting symbolizes feeling trapped mentally by war. While simple on the surface, "Journey's End" rewards those who look below for its complex psychological insights into how war shapes people.

1. Nadia W – EFL – Grade 11
“No other play is quite so simple, yet quite so complex.”
To what extent do you agree with this idea in reference to R.C. Sherriff’s “Journey’s End”.
In a lot of cases, things may not be what they seem. It takes more than just a single look
to see something for what it really is instead of what it appears to look like on the outside. To
me this idea applies to R.C Sherriff’s “Journey’s End”, a play that tells the story of Stanhope, a
young commanding officer, and his infantry company officers during the First World War. I
completely agree with the statement “No other play is quite so simple, yet quite so complex [as
R.C Sherriff’s “Journey’s End]” because “Journey’s End” isn’t just a story that revolves around an
event that took place in the First World War, it is also enriched with a great plot, complex
characters as well as Sherriff’s clever use of symbolism.
One reason this play is simple and yet complex is the plot and writing itself. This is a
story with layers. It is an easy story for us to understand, but there’s actually more to the story
if we try to read between the lines. In the first act of the play, we are introduced to Osborne,
Raleigh and Stanhope, who comes into the scene demanding for a bottle of whisky. We quickly
learn that Stanhope wasn’t always like this and we see a more human Stanhope when he lets
his wall down briefly at times such as the time he told Hibbert, his officer who was faking an
illness in order to leave, that he sometimes wished he could just “pretend he was paralysed
[…] and just lie in [his bed] until he died – or was dragged away”. We see the fear he had kept
quiet for so long. In act three, when Osborne and Raleigh were chosen to conduct a raid of the
German’s trenches and Osborne ended up dying, it pushed Stanhope to the edge of a break
down which Sherriff hinted at us with the stage direction, “[Stanhope] stands with his face
towards the wall, his shoulders heaving as he fights for breath” giving us an image of a man
who’s had so much burden on his shoulders for so long that it is hard for him to live anymore
(“breath” being a fundamental part of life) – this connects back to the topic ‘simple yet
complex’ because with just one simple stage direction, Sherriff was able to get us to
understand the real complexity Stanhope is going through. Sherriff is subtle in his plot build
up. We may not realize how a lot of the interactions between the characters were actually
foreshadowing the climax and ultimately the ending. One instance of the characters
foreshadowing the future is how prior to the attack Osborne was very occupied with time, it
suggests that he knows he’s got very little time left and it worries him because he wonders
what would happen after he died, when from an existentialism point of view, nothing would.
This links back to the topic ‘simple yet complex’ because even though just by reading it once

2. Nadia W – EFL – Grade 11
you would understand what’s happened, but this is only the surface – if you try to understand
and see the subtext, you’d realise there’s more substance in that small scene. I think, even
though there is a very short time span from the beginning to the end of the play, Sherriff was
able to give us enough of a glimpse into the characters’ personalities and how the war has
affected them so that we are able to form our own opinions and ideas about the characters.
Although the words that the characters say are simple and easy to understand, Sherriff
shows us the complexity of what’s really going on inside their heads through stage directions
and body gestures. In the play the characters have to face their inner turmoil as much as the
external disturbances affecting them. It is necessary for us to analyze the situation instead of
just taking what the characters tell us through dialogue. Take Sherriff’s main character, Dennis
Stanhope. For a man at the age of 21, Stanhope has achieved a lot and in turn faced a lot during
the three years he served the army. This experience ultimately changed him into the ideal
company leader – stoical and unmoving. Early on in the play we were told that he had a
reputation for drinking. However, Osborne also referred to him as “the best company
commander [they’ve] got”. In the first act of the play we were already given a paradox by
Sherriff, we were introduced to a character who was a great leader and yet he was also a drunk.
Further on in the play, we find out that drinking was just a way Stanhope’s character coped
with the war. According to him, if he were ever to go “into the front line without being doped
with whiskey, [he’d] go mad with fright” and then told Raleigh in a confrontation that he drank
after Osborne’s death to forget about it because there was “[a] limit to what a man can bear”.
We can see that Stanhope was using vices to hide his true emotions. He wasn’t just the man we
were introduced to. There was something more to him and yet there was something less of him
because we find out that he had his motives and reasons why he did the things he did, but these
reasons were reasons that led us to believe that deep down he was truly a broken man. This
was hinted at by the image of a liquor bottle Stanhope kept drinking. A bottle is empty from the
neck up and this is what Stanhope wished to achieve, an empty vessel from the neck up.
Sherriff’s other characters also aren’t what they appear to look like on the outside. I think
Stanhope’s a very rich character, and so are Sherriff’s other characters such as Trotter, who
surprised me at the end with his cool and wisdom that could fill in Osborne’s role in Stanhope’s
company. Just like we have to keep in mind in our daily life, this play reminds us that most
people are more than their initial impression.

3. Nadia W – EFL – Grade 11
Symbolism plays a huge part in this play where the most ordinary and simple objects or
dialogue could represent more complex ideas. Osborne’s watch is an important object
throughout this play. It is one of the overall symbols in the play signifying time. For us, time is
precious but this is even truer for these soldiers because they live every moment in the war
wondering if it would be their last. We might not be aware of how often we are actually
reminded of time in the play, because the mention of time may not seem so significant to us.
The setting of the play itself could represent another image. This play is set in a dugout in the
British trenches and we are not shown scenes happening outside of this small square room. We
are not shown actions of war in this play instead we are shown the psychology of war. This
makes me imagine being trapped in your own mind but having no control over it. Objects and
setting aren’t the only things that are symbolic, the characters’ dialogue hold their own subtext
at times. In one scene Trotter talks of one of his hollyhocks, a type of flower, which grew taller
than the rest of his hollyhocks and needed no stick to keep it straight, this reminds us of
Stanhope, their company leader – the young man who has survived the war longer than any of
them. These two dialogue are ‘simple yet complex’ because the simple dialogue actually held
more complex ideas but the symbolisms played out here are so subtle that one would need to
be looking out for symbolisms to realize it. Whether the characters themselves intend for their
words to be symbolic is hard to tell but I think Sherriff has succeeded in getting us to think back
on what we’ve just read.
“Journey’s End” is an excellent example of something that is “simple yet complex”. It is
a play that excels in its simplicity by being more than just what it looks like on the surface. In
less than a 100 pages “Journey’s End” was able to get me to care about the characters and get
my brain thinking. Just like the setting of the play is below ground, we need to dig under the
first layer of this play to get to the good part. From this play, I learnt of the need to keep an
open mind so that we don’t quickly judge things because things are rarely what they appear to
be on the outside.