Part 2 Summary



Death plays a crutial role in The Wars,
whether it be a person or an animal. There
are already so many instances
of death in this book so far.

Middle of the war. France. During the battle of Ypres. Robert is now in charge of his own convoy whose objective is to reach the trench main front. Robert describes the war scene as mud, death, and horrible sights. On route to the front line, Robert finds himself almost drowning in mud (one of his biggest fears), after misleading his convoy out onto a dike of mud. After solely saving himself, his convoy eventually makes it to the dugout where Robert finds Devlin, Bonnycastle, and a visitor named Rodwell. Rodwell is a different type of man who has a collection of injured animals that he cares for. He has birds, toads, rabbits, and even a hedgehog. The animals agonizingly reminded Robert of Rowena and the rabbits who she once cared for. Robert began to share a respect for Rodwell for the fact of his care of animals.

This is a wooden cremation urn,
in which Robert recieved after the
death of Harris. Death plays an important
role in this book and an urn is a great
symbolic meaning for death.

During Robert’s time of leave from the war, he went to visit Harris everyday in the hospital. Harris contracted bronchitis and was deathly ill. Harris ended up passing away days before Robert was scheduled back to France. Robert insisted for a proper burial of his friend, but discovered there after that he was cremated. There was a transcript of Lady Juliet d’Orsey that explained how Robert, Taffler and d’Orsey spread Harris’ ashes into the Greenwich River. The next best place besides the sea, which actually meant something to Harris.

Part two ends with the second half of the battle beginning. A line of land mines were set off near Robert’s dugout, followed by infamous gun shots in the distance.

“This was the beginning of the second phase of a battle the Canadians had thought was already over. But it was to rage for five more days. In it 30 000 men would die and not an inch of ground would be won.” (Findley 106)

This was seriously how pointless this war was. Hundreds of thousands of men died in this war for almost no gain or purpose. Stay tuned for a later blog about Canada’s involvement in WWI, which will elaborate on one of most senseless wars in history, WWI.