The Wars is a 1977

1977 in literature

The year 1977 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Douglas Adams begins writing for BBC radio.*V. S. Naipaul declines the offer of a CBE....

 novel by Timothy Findley

Timothy Findley

Timothy Irving Frederick Findley, OC, O.Ont was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.-Biography:...

 telling the story of a young Canadian officer in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. First published by Clarke Irwin, it won the Governor General's Award

Governor General's Award

The Governor General's Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields. The first was conceived in 1937 by Lord Tweedsmuir, a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction who created the Governor...

 for fiction in 1977.

Plot overview

After Robert's disabled sister falls out of her wheelchair and dies, Robert blames his absence for her death. He wished he could have been there to catch her when she fell, and is distraught after her death. Hoping to find a new purpose, Robert enlists in the army. Despite many encounters and personality shaping events, Robert remains throughout the book a sensitive, loving, man. His love, being affected by many events throughout the novel, broadens its arms and embraces more people and animals as the novel continues.

Influences and style

Robert Ross, the protagonist, was inspired by T. E. Lawrence

T. E. Lawrence

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO , known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18...

 and the author's uncle, Thomas Irving Findley, to whom the novel is dedicated. Findley named the character after Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 literary figure Robbie Ross. Robert Ross' sister, Rowena, was inspired by Mary Macdonald, daughter of Sir John A. Macdonald.

The Wars utilizes first-

First-person narrative

First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

, second-, and third-person narrative, which is very rare in literature. The novel is also an example of historiographic metafiction.

Prologue

A man named Robert Ross is introduced as squatting in a tattered Canadian military uniform, with his hands between his legs while holding a pistol. A nearby building is on fire, and a train is stopped. There is evidence of war, and Ross is shown to be in the company of a black horse and a dog. Robert, the horse, and the dog seem to have been together for a while, as they understand each other. He decides to free a herd of horses from the train, and the prologue ends with the horses, rider, and dog all running as a herd.

Part One

Robert Ross has enlisted in the army after the death of his sister which he feels guilty about. His sister, Rowena, has recently died from falling out of her wheelchair in their barn while playing with her rabbits. Robert feels guilty because he was unable to save her since he was making love to his pillow in his locked room. He then joins the army to distance himself from the pain. Rowena was in a wheelchair and Robert watched over her. She had rabbits and loved to play with them. When she died, Robert's mother wanted him to kill the rabbits but Robert refused. Instead, Mr.Ross called someone else to kill the rabbits. In an attempt to stop the rabbit-killing by Teddy Budge, Robert was beaten up, covered in bruises. Robert's mother came to talk to him as he soaked his bruises in the bathtub. She was drunk and smoking a cigarette when she confronted him, and said there was nothing she could do to stop him from going to war.

He meets Eugene Taffler, a war hero while in training. Eugene Taffler is very big and strong. Robert's first encounter with him occurs while he is looking for some lost horses. He comes across Taffler throwing stones at glass bottles, and later at a brothel where Taffler is engaging in gay sex with a large male, named "Goliath."

While on the S.S. Massanabie to England, Ross has to kill a horse that broke its leg during a storm. Robert struggles a lot trying to kill the horse, firing and missing many times before landing his shots.

Part Two

Robert is now in France and in charge of a convoy. He went ahead in the fog. He falls into a muddy sinkhole and nearly drowns. After 'saving himself' he is met by Poole and Levitt, two of his men. Robert eventually reaches the dugout with Levitt. Devlin, Bonnycastle, and Rodwell are there. Rodwell cares for injured animals he finds and has birds, rabbits, toads, and hedgehogs. The rabbits remind Robert painfully of Rowena, because she loved to play with her own rabbits back at home. Robert builds a bond with Rodwell, and begins to love him. Rodwell is the only other civil soldier who cares and respects animals. Harris dies two weeks before Robert was scheduled to leave for France. Trying to figure out what to do with Harris and wanting a proper funeral by the army for his friend, Robert discovers when he goes back that Harris is already cremated. Disappointed by the way his friend is buried Robert says to Taffler "This is not a military funeral. This is just a burial at sea. May we take off our caps?" pg. 107. Feb 28th - the Germans set of a sting of land mines, ranged along the St.Eloi Salient. The whole country side goes up in flames. This was the second half of the battle the Canadians thought was already over. 30,000 men would die and not a inch of land would be won.

Part Three

Robert is now experiencing trench warfare at its worst. Following a shelling of the dugout, his fellow soldier Levitt loses his mind, and Robert finds himself close to the brink. Ordered to place guns in a location sure to be a deathtrap, Robert and his men find themselves on the wrong end of a gas attack in the middle of a freezing cold winter. Robert is instructed to place the guns in a crater that is formed by the shelling attacks because these provide the best strategical advantage. As he approaches the crater Robert tells the rest of the men to stay back while he tests it to see if it is safe. He begins climbing across the slide of the crater when he slips down but smashes his knees on a rifle sticking out of the wall of the crater. The rifle has at least stopped his fall but has injured Robert's knees pretty badly. As the rest of the men start climbing down and landing on the rifle to set up the guns there is a gas attack. The bottom of the crater is full of freezing water and many begin jumping into it. Robert takes control with his pistol and instructs the men what to do. He saves the men by telling them to urinate on clothes and hold them over their faces. One man is scared to urinate and Robert must do it for him. After pretending to be dead for hours, Robert finds that they are being watched by an enemy German soldier. Rather than shooting the soldiers, the German allows all of Robert's men to leave the area. Just as Robert is leaving, however, the German makes a quick motion, and Robert turns around and shoots the German. Robert thinks that the German was reaching for his rifle when he was actually reaching for a pair of binoculars to look at the bird flying overhead, and is even more horrified to see that the German has a sniper rifle right beside him, meaning he could have killed Robert and the rest of the soldiers if he had wanted to. Robert hears a bird chirping above him and is then haunted by the sound of the bird from then on.

Part Four

Robert receives an invitation to Barbara d'Orsey's home. The majority of this section is told through transcripts via Juliet d'Orsey. Juliet relays through diary entries when she is with them. What she does not tell Robert is that Taffler had both his arms cut off in the war and is just laying on a bed in a room. When Robert sees this he is devastated.

Juliet also tells of Eugene Taffler's attempted suicide. One day she decides to pick some flowers and bring them to Taffler. As she walks in she is faced with a man head first into the floor and bloody streaks all over the walls. Taffler had rubbed his raw stumps where his arms had been against the walls so he could bleed to death. But since Juliet walks in on him she screams and people come and end up saving Taffler.

Juliet has told Robert that the room he had been given had a ghost (Lady Sorrel) who came to it every night to light the candles. And one night Juliet sees Barbara sneak into Robert's room without even knocking. So she thinks it would be a neat prank to dress up as Lady Sorrel carrying a candle and walk into Robert's room to light the candles and leave. As Juliet puts on her costume and walks up to the door she opens a crack and accidentally sees Barbara and Robert Ross make love prior to leaving, which she at first thinks is Robert hurting Barbara. By the end of the chapter, Juliet gives Robert a candle and a box of matches.

Part Five

Robert leaves Barbara d'Orsey's home and heads back to battle on a small train. He gets hopelessly lost on the way and loses his pack, after many weeks of travelling in circles he arrives at Désolé, a mental institution. Shortly after reaching the bath house, he is brutally raped by an unknown number of his fellow soldiers. When he returns to his room, he finally receives his lost pack, and burns his picture of Rowena as an act of charity, reasoning that it would be horrible for something so innocent to exist in such a messed up world.

Robert then moves back out to the front. The Germans begin firing shells that set everything ablaze. Robert goes to speak to Captain Leather to request that the horses be let out of the barn because if the barn is hit they will all die. Captain Leather refuses Robert's request. Once back at the barn Robert asks his friend Devlin if he would help him release the horses. Devlin contemplates whether or not he should let all the horses die or face the wrath of Captain Leather. Devlin decides to help Robert and runs out to open the gate for the horses. At that moment Captain Leather gets up from hiding beneath a table and looks out the window to see Devlin disobeying his orders. He runs out screaming at him to stop, and calls treason and traitor. Leather pulls out his gun and fires at Devlin killing him. Then he sees Robert and takes aim at him and starts firing but misses because Robert hides between the horses as they are running out. At that moment three shells land and set the barn ablaze, the building where the Captain was and other soldiers were still in, and the field where all the horses had run to ablaze. And soon everything is burning around Robert, even the horses are slowly burning alive. Robert sees Captain Leather struggling to get him, walks over and shoots him in between the eyes.

Robert runs away as he knows he will be court-martialed for disobeying orders. He finds a black horse and a black dog beside it, as he is about to ride the horse down the track he realizes there are horses in the abandoned train and frees a hundred and thirty horses and flees the area. As Robert is riding with all the horses a soldier stops him and asks him to return the horses, Robert pulls out his Webley and shoots him dead. He is a fugitive for some time before finally being caught in a barn with the horses. The soldiers surrounding Robert set the barn on fire in order to force him out. But because it had not rained for days the roof of the barn was extremely dry and lit up in seconds. Before Robert could open the barn doors the roof collapsed on him and the horses, setting them all on fire. Robert is saved but badly burned, and all the horses and the dog are killed. Robert turns down an offer of euthanasia from a nurse before returning home to Canada. He never recovers from his burns but lives for another six years before passing away in 1922.

Robert Ross

A second lieutenant in the Canadian field artillery from 1916-1917 (he enlisted when he was nineteen). He is a compassionate, handsome fellow who suffers the loss of his sister, Rowena, who died from a fall onto cement ground in the barn. This caused Robert great guilt for his sister's death. From this point, Robert has violent streaks and leads an internal war with himself while also trying to cope with the war going on in the world. After Rowena's death, Robert became distant from his mother and much closer to his father, who continued to support and encourage him throughout his experience in the war. Robert's personality is serious, practical, determined, and observant of things that other people cannot see. His observations also allow him to react quickly to the situations he encounters in this novel. Even though Robert is determined, he was not a natural killer; this weakness was seen in his inability to kill the injured horse or Rowena's rabbits. Robert strove to learn from Eugene Taffler, who Robert hoped could help teach him to kill by example. After all the terrible things Robert witnesses, he gradually descends into madness, and goes AWOL. He kills two fellow officers in an attempt to save hundreds of horses from slaughter.

Rowena Ross

Rowena is Robert's older sister, whom Robert felt a connection to from a very early age. She was hydrocephalic, meaning she was born with water in the brain. This caused her to have an adult sized head but a body of a ten-year-old, and made her unable to walk. Robert acted as her guardian for most of his life. She was 25 years old when she fell out of her wheel chair in their barn and shortly after, passed away. Because of Robert's protective nature towards her, he felt extreme guilt for not being there to watch her and make sure nothing happened, like that. However, she remained in Robert's heart and mind throughout the rest of the novel and was constantly referenced. Rowena also had ten rabbits that she looked after and kept as pets while she was alive that Mrs. Ross insisted be killed, against Robert's wishes, shortly after Rowena's death.
(this helps)

Thomas Ross

Commonly referred to as Mr. Ross in the novel, who is the father of Robert Ross. He was the more lenient parent in the family and loved every member enough to encourage Robert to go for what he wants, but be lenient towards Rowena's death and the accusations that were made. The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ross became helpless after Rowena's death and Robert's enlisting in the army.

Margaret Elizabeth Ross

Mrs. Ross is Robert's mother who has issues with closeness to people that she truly loves. Later on it is revealed in the novel that her brother died in a completely random trolley accident and ever since then she realized how hopeless it was to keep people alive. This way of being "distant" from the ones she loves is displayed early on in the novel when she joins Robert in the bathroom during his bath. She tells him that "people in the world are all born alone and at the hands of strangers" and tells him that she could do nothing to keep him alive from the moment he was cut away from her. This statement makes it seem as though she doesn't care about Robert going off to the army because she can't keep him alive anyways. But in the end it is ironic in how although she was always "distant" from him, while he experiences the perils of War overseas, she would go out in the rain, wind, and storm to experience the types of conditions he was experiencing. This truly displays the way that their mother/son bond is always existent and no matter what she says can never be broken. Later on when Robert is labelled as "missing in action" by the army, Mrs. Ross goes blind almost as though without her son in the world her light has gone out and there is nothing left to see.

Marian Turner

Marian Turner is a young nurse during the war. She cares for Robert when he is injured late in the novel, but the reader is introduced to her earlier. Via transcripts of interviews, an 80-year old Marian gives accounts of what Robert was like as a young man, and of life during the war.

Lady Juliet d'Orsey

Juliet d'Orsey gives an account of Robert, whom she knew at the age of twelve and for whom she had romantic feelings. She is Barbara d'Orsey's younger sister who saw too much and acted too maturely for her age. Interestingly, she seems to be the only character who understands the delicate homoerotic undertones in male friendships without being confused or disturbed by them.

Barbara d'Orsey

This lady is Juliet's older sister, who became Robert's lover at a point in the novel. She was uncaring and moved easily from one man to another. She admired athletes and heroes, and constantly frustrated delicate homoerotic relationships without understanding her own destructiveness.

Eugene Taffler

This man was a war hero who was often accompanied by a dog and a horse. He later loses his arms. After that occurrence he attempts suicide, by rubbing his stubs against the wall, but is thwarted by Lady Juliet d'Orsey. From the very beginning when he is first introduced he plays the game of hitting bottles off of posts with stones, perfect accuracy and strength. This reflects Taffler's reputation in the war as soldier known for killing as though it were some kind of game. Taffler's reputation and self-image are linked closely with his arms. First as he's introduced using them to hit bottles with stones, and even later when he helps Robert toss Harris' ashes into the river. When Taffler loses his arms he no longer wants to live because his arms were so much a part of him and his identity that without he doesn't have the will to live. Taffler is a complex character because although when introduced, Robert makes Taffler his model of masculinity, but later discovers him having (paying for) gay sex. Nevertheless, Taffler goes on to have a seemingly normal heterosexual relationship with Barbara d'Orsey.

Wars

The plural "Wars" in the title implies that there are multiple conflicts within the novel. Robert's time in the army and his personal conflicts are among them.

Animals

• The birds represent the danger that Robert was going to experience in the novel. They are a sort of warning; each time Robert notices they have stopped singing, an attack soon follows. It also represents life and the freedom which must be fought for on personal levels.
• The coyote represents the relationship between man and beast. It can mean friendship, companionship, and loyalty towards Robert. The coyote willingly ran with Robert.
• Rabbits come up in the novel on several occasions: it brings back memories to Robert about how he did not want to kill the rabbits, since they belonged to Rowena. The rabbits along with Rowena are a symbol of innocence and purity.
• The horse is what brought Robert to Eugene Taffler. Robert was corralling mustangs when he came across Taffler, who had returned and reenlisted in the war. The horse was often used in the novel as a means of transportation and companionship. When Robert finds a mare while attempting to free a group of doomed military horses, this horse is notably described as black. This refers to the Book of Revelation, in which St. John the Divine describes a vision of a black horse whose rider is holding balances.

Elements

The four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) are all featured in the novel. They each represent a trial that Robert Ross must overcome on his journey.

• Earth represents the mud that almost claims Robert's life in Ypres.
• Air is a symbol of the chlorine gas used against the Allies, which Robert neutralizes with urine.
• Fire is shown as the artillery fire, flamethrowers, and as the barn that ends up claiming the lives of Robert's horses and dog. (Part Five).
• Water is represented as the rain and mud.

Water Representing Change

Robert takes a bath after Rowena's death

It rains at Rowena's funeral

Robert stands in the rain at the train station

In other media

A feature film version of The Wars, written by Findley and directed by Robin Phillips

Robin Phillips

Robin Phillips is an English actor and director.Phillips was born in Haslemere, Surrey, the son of EllenAnne and James William Phillips. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic and worked as an actor and director for many years in the United Kingdom, finishing as Artistic Director at the Greenwich...

, was released in 1983. The novel has also been adapted for the stage by Dennis Garnhum, and premiered at Theatre Calgary

Theatre Calgary

Theatre Calgary, theatre company in Calgary, Alberta, established as a professional company in 1968.-History:The origin of the company dates back to the 1940s, when students of Betty Mitchell, a drama teacher at Calgary's Western Canada High School, established an amateur group known as "Workshop...

in September 2007.