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As well as portraying the political views of the time, there are also echoes of Thatcherism. Whelan shows this conservative ideology through the character of May. May is a working-class stall owner who aspires to be middle-class and has middle-class ideals “they’re just waiting to see you stumble, slip back and be as they are. In the end it’s just you…yourself. We don’t create the rules of life. They’re there.” The same ideologies are hinted at in Sherriff’s Journey’s End. There were few plays written during the 1920’s that commented on political and social events and not a lot were very successful. Sherriff said in his autobiography that his characters were ‘simple, unquestioning men who fought the war because it seemed the only right and proper thing to do … (it was a play) in which not a word was spoken against the war … and no word of condemnation was uttered …’ What he hoped to do was to show ‘how men really lived in the trenches, how they talked and how they
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In both plays there are clear divisions between the middle and working classes, this is shown through characterisation. Sherriff exposes the class system through the use of his characterisation of the officers and serving soldiers, he portrays the officers as being from the middle-class, public school section of society. For example, Raleigh is a public schoolboy who is, ”just out from England”. He is also the only officer there who has “never been up on the line before. Due to his class, he is immediately instigated as an officer and therefore has a lot in common with the other officers in the dugout. He speaks with a Received Pronunciation accent (Queen’s English) and uses a lot of sporting idioms “He was a skipper of rugger at Barford, and kept wicket for the eleven. A jolly good bat, too.” The use of the sporting language here is closely associated with an education in a public school. Raleigh’s enthusiasm when speaking of his school days also emphasises his inexperience with war and the effect it has on people. This is a huge contrast to the character of Tom in The Accrington Pals, who is a working-class boy that lodges with May. Like Raleigh he is inexperienced with the workings of war. He studied at an art school and before joining the Pals, was an apprenticed lithographer and helped May run her stall. He has socialist and progressive views, which contrast
In both plays there are clear divisions between the middle and working classes, this is shown through characterisation. Sherriff exposes the class system through the use of his characterisation of the officers and serving soldiers, he portrays the officers as being from the middle-class, public school section of society. For example, Raleigh is a public schoolboy who is, ”just out from England”. He is also the only officer there who has “never been up on the line before. Due to his class, he is immediately instigated as an officer and therefore has a lot in common with the other officers in the dugout. He speaks with a Received Pronunciation accent (Queen’s English) and uses a lot of sporting idioms “He was a skipper of rugger at Barford, and kept wicket for the eleven. A jolly good bat, too.” The use of the sporting language here is closely associated with an education in a public school. Raleigh’s enthusiasm when speaking of his school days also emphasises his inexperience with war and the effect it has on people. This is a huge contrast to the character of Tom in The Accrington Pals, who is a working-class boy that lodges with May. Like Raleigh he is inexperienced with the workings of war. He studied at an art school and before joining the Pals, was an apprenticed lithographer and helped May run her stall. He has socialist and progressive views, which contrast