Themes Of The Wars Timothy Findley

The Wars by Timothy Findley is a novel telling the story of nineteen-year-old Canadian officer in World War I, Robert Ross. Ross enlists in the army after his sister dies under his watch, or really lack thereof, after telling some backstory of how Ross got to this decision he heads to basic training. After training he heads off to France and fights a gruesome battle filled with trench warfare, gas, snipers and muddy (shit fields triggered) like scenes that paint a picture of an awful war. The home of a French family, the d’Orsey’s was converted into a hospital for the allies, Robert was recovering from his injuries from previous battles in the house. This will probably sound very cliché, but it would be honestly very hard to describe the awful events of the last section of the novel, it includes an all be it gruesome but important rape scene of Robert as well as depictions of him being nearly burned alive in a barn trying to rescue horses. …show more content…
The novel is only 226 pages so I felt it could easily be added to the circular and even though I deeply enjoyed the novel I feel it would best replace Heart of Darkness. Some other major themes that are interesting are the ideas of all of the different “public” and “private” wars going on in the novel. We get an obvious one the actual massive very public war of WWI and then also many “private” wars between the Ross and d’Orsey families that have many problems that are happening concurrently to the actual massive war. Findley also shows the internal war Robert is facing when dealing with the loss of his sister. The Wars is an interesting short novel that explores many different themes and types of storytelling that helps create a fresh war