The Wars
By Timothy Findley
“Prior to the writing of The Wars, it was unheard of for any writer who had not experienced it
first hand to write about "The War to End All Wars". However, Findley, with his direct and
shocking style, was able to surpass this barrier and create one of the most acclaimed novels
about World War I.” - Acadia
“The Wars remains Findley’s most-discussed book. Based partly on the wartime
correspondence of his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley, and on family photos, he wrote the novel
in guise of a researcher trying to reconstruct the story of Robert Ross, a soldier of the Great
War.” - National Library of Canada
Setting of the Play
Time: 1915 – Word War I
Setting: Lethbridge, Belgium, France and England
Themes
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Violence: the necessity of it; what it accomplishes
Isolation: the isolation of self and impact on identity
Animal rights: companionship; exploitation; hierarchy of life
Identity: how can an individual survive and thrive in a world of madness
Disillusionment: falsehood of romanticism; perception vs. reality
Wars: both WWI and the internal dilemmas and conflicts
Symbolism
Dogs and Horses: Loyal companions who don’t judge
- prologue
- dog watching Robert at the train station (15)
- Taffler accompanied by horse and dog
- encounter dogs and horses on the way to whorehouse
- horses on board the ship
Coyote: “Robert learns from this run, that a hunter kills when it has to survive, but is generous
when it is not a hunter.” (Acadia)
Water: life satisfies Robert’s thirst (27) Water as a plentiful source (Canadian).
Seasons: Change and time
- “And now, the leaves had fallen twice. It was not for nothing he’d stood
beneath the wide marquee that summer day. It would fill and fall on
everyone.” (47)
Fire: the brutality of war.
- “But only the letters mailed from France were worthy of this exchange. They
had the smell of fire.” (74)
Chapter Notes
“Never that which is shall die.” - EURIPIDES
 A suitable epigraph for the novel.
 Provides the theme before reading to focus the reader on the proper points.
 Is one of Findley’s reoccurring themes
Euripides killed by dogs – significance?
Chapter One
Prologue: Actually the Climax of the Novel
“A dog and a horse by the railroad tracks”(1) By beginning with this strange and unexplained set
of circumstances the reader is left in suspense. What is happening in this scene? Why is it
happening?
 “He had wandered for over a week.”
 “Robert appeared to be the sole survivor.”
 “It was as if both dog and horse had been waiting for Robert to come for them.”
 “This was when the moon rose – red.”
It is also at the root of the Robert Ross story and controversy.
 Something horrible has happened but is Robert the cause or recipient?
Style and Voice
Beginning at photo archives
Researcher trying to come to terms with the mysterious story of Robert Ross. The details and
descriptions of this story are vague yet appear important
 Memory has to be preserved and hidden from those who seek to exploit it. “The
occupants of memory have to be protected from strangers.”
 Differences of opinion about Robert – obviously did something bad that polarized
opinions about him
 Mystery to be decoded; whole created by the parts (like the novel); no one wants
the story to be revealed. “Sometimes, someone will forget himself and say too
much or else the corner of a picture will reveal the whole.”
Told in second person = impersonal.
Sets atmosphere: as though reader is unearthing a past that has long remained dormant
“Spread over table tops, a whole age lies in fragments underneath the lamp.”
Society
 Description of people very shy and unassuming at first - “1915. The year itself looks
sepia and soiled – muddied like its pictures.” (4)
 Pictures alter as war goes on – people are waving at camera (5)
 Changing seasons reflect changing times. “The melting snow began to
turn to mist and the mist was filled with rabbits and Rowena and his
father and his mother and the whole of his past life – birth and death and
childhood. He could breathe them in and breathe them out.” (14)
 War is an integral part of the human condition. “The passions involved [in bringing
about the war] were as ordinary as me and my sister fighting over who is going to
cook dinner!” (11)
 “What binds us together” is “our basest instincts.”
 Many young soldiers and citizens possess an idyllic and romantic view of the war at
the beginning of the war. Ex: To Clifford, “The war was a deadly serious and heavensent chance to become a man.” (24)
 War brings sweeping changes to society - “After the Great War for Civilization –
sleep was different everywhere…” (46)
Character(s)
Robert’s character: “You know it will obtrude again and again until you find its meaning –
here.” (6)
 What type of life was Robert dealt? What type of person was he? “Shuffle these cards and
lay them out: this is the hand that Robert Ross was born with.”
 picture of the dazed Robert:
 Robert “doubts the validity in all this marshaling of men but the doubt is
inarticulate.” That Robert opposed the war says a lot about the
circumstances – Rowena’s death, his mother – that drove him to enlist

Robert and his mother disagree about the war
 “Such things have to be done…someone has to do them.” (7) Feels
the war is a patriotic duty
 Mrs. Ross performs her wartime duties because of dreams.

Robert is a curious, pensive individual (picture of the dotted iceberg)
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Marian Turner cared for Robert in the hospital after his arrest. Her opinion:
“someone extremely well made who cared about his body.” (9)
 Fragile “like glass” (10)
 a hero because “he did the thing that no one else would even dare to
think of doing.”
 Robert no Hitler, precisely his problem. Robert was not a prominent individual like
Hitler, so his achievements went unnoticed.
 “It’s the ordinary men and women who’ve made us who we are.” While it
was the politicians that shaped the events that led the war, it was the
individual men and women who made up the country who pledged their
lives and ultimately determined the outcome of the war.
 shy of girls
 confused over Heather Lawson situation; is naïve or impatient in matters
dealing with girls (13)
 Robert’s ego is easily bruised. (14)
 How easily innocence is corrupted?
 Wants space to escape his problems. Robert envies Peggy’s army beau because he
could “surround himself with space.”
 “What Robert wanted was someone else who had acquired that state of
mind: who killed as an exercise of the will.” (24)
 Robert runs on the compound (25) Trying to escape his problems.
 “No thank you, sir. I promised my mother I wouldn’t drink.” (69)
 Struggles with roles and identity
 Robert forced to go to whorehouse, doesn’t want to go, but sees need to
conform (34)
 Like his mother in that he struggles to reveal his emotions – or simply refuses
to (51)
 Doesn’t send love to anyone; too unmanly
 [Robert] would go upstairs into the attic, when he was ten, and take off his
clothes in front of an old, dark mirror and wish that he was red.”
 Robert is often left in a state of confusion and disarray, but tries to continue
anyway - “A chair fell over in his mind.” (68)
 Robert’s naiveté in face of prostitute
 Anxiety - “Part of Robert’s panic was his fear of what his own hands would
do. It seemed they were magnets, drawn to his groin, and he had to fight to
stop them from moving.” (39)
 Animal instincts - “His body hadn’t waited for his mind. It did things on its
own.” (40)
 Struggles when his privacy is intruded upon by the sound coming through the
walls. Erodes his fragile and sensitive core.
 Robert regularly homesick
 Smell of alcohol at the whorehouse reminds him of his mother (35)
 “Where, in this dark, was the world he’d known and where was he being
taken to so fast there wasn’t even time to stop?” (45)
 Success in the army because he has leadership qualities
 Robert promoted to second-lieutenant.
 Any romantic images of the War are quickly dismissed
 Wretched atmosphere. “The place was alive with flies.’ (62)
 “Any storms that troubled it got there by way of Joseph Conrad and the Boys’
Own Manual.”
 Dilemma of shooting of the horse (similar to rabbits) and “…his hand
haunting his holster.”
 What is foreshadowed when Robert and Harris’ relationship is described as
ending “in ashes”? (70)
Rowena
 Rowena not seen in pictures because people in her state were hidden from society
and looked down upon
 Rowena’s death = “Robert’s fault” because he was “her guardian”. He broke his
[impossible] promise to save her, causing him to feel responsible.
 Broken promise that will be Robert’s undoing. “Will you stay with me
forever?” (17)
 Dies playing with rabbits
 same characteristics as rabbits: small, gentle, fragile, precious to those
who love them.
 Mrs. Ross insists that Robert kill Rowena’s rabbits – Possible attempt at creating
closure or just a malicious person?
 Why must Robert kill the rabbits? “BECAUSE HE LOVED HER” (19)
 Perhaps by killing the rabbits, which Robert so closely associates with his sister,
Robert will overcome his grief, and move on.
 “All these actors were obeying some kind of fate we call ‘revenge’. Because a girl
had died – and her rabbits had survived her.” (20) A punishment for the rabbits for
having outlived a superior species, for allowing Rowena’s spirit to live on and bring
more grief to the family.
Mr. and Mrs. Ross
 Mr. and Mrs. Ross have a cold relationship at best (18). Perhaps this arises from the
fact that Mr. Ross is more generous in his affections towards his children, whereas
Mrs. Ross is more reserved and guards her emotions strongly.
Mr. Ross:
 Robert pushes aside his father. Though they have a strong bond, they do differ on
some points.
 Robert’s father used to tell him stories. Bond between father and son. (48)
 sight of his father lifts Robert’s spirits immeasurably (50)
Mrs. Ross:
 Mrs. Ross’s hair – duality of character (21)
 Drinks to escape – alcoholic?
 Tension between mother and son “He hated the way she used his childhood –
everyone’s childhood as a weapon.”
 Rare moments in which she sincerely reaches out to her son show love. “Do you
want me to…help in any way?”
 Mrs. Ross is unable to express her emotions in a comfortable, soothing way, instead
lashing out in a way that only results in alienating those she loves.
 Strong-mindedness “If I fall down – I fall down.”
 refuses to wallow in grief but clings to Miss Davenport.
 Miss Davenport more of a companion to Mrs. Ross as she becomes more
estranged from her own family (52)
 “You think Rowena belonged to you. Well I’m here to tell you, Robert, no one
belongs to anyone. We’re all cut off at birth with a knife and left at the mercy
of strangers. You hear that? Strangers. I know what you want to do. Well –
you can go to hell. I’m not responsible. I’m just another stranger. Birth I can
give you – but life I cannot, I can’t keep anyone alive. Not anymore.” (23)
 Negative view of church (53)
 “What [Mrs. Ross] needed was an empty cathedral in which to rail at God.”
(54)
 Can’t reconcile celebration at church with killing of the children at war. Mrs.
Ross sees the Church value system as being false, a tremendous lie.
 Continues to elude reality as she has a hard time coming to grips with it. - Mrs. Ross
began to wear dark glasses so her eyes could not be seen (72)
 Longes her son to come back home, one that is never expressed. “Come on back to
the raf’, Huck honey.” (30) – Huckleberry Finn allusion
Eugene Taffler: a war hero who’s been to France, was wounded, and then returned to
Canada (30)
 Wants to prove himself worthy in combat (“the war to pit him against Goliath”) (32).
 All you get in this war is one little David against another.” (Taffler) (31)
 Represents the individual men who served in the war are but anonymous figures in a
war that involved the lives of millions, and are thus rendered insignificant.
 “Taffler was just a dot on the horizon. Dots were anonymous.”
 Robert first sees him as a role model “a man to whom killing wasn’t killing at all but
only throwing… A man to who war wasn’t good enough unless it was bigger than he
was.”
 description of intercourse horse-like (43) animal-like behavior
 “The man being ridden was Taffler. The rider was the Swede. Goliath.” (44)