Afterthoughts of The Wars

All in all, I found The Wars to be one of the most interesting war books I have ever read. In all honesty, I don’t normally read much literature unless I am forced to for an assignment, for say, like this one, but seriously this book is intriguing to the audience in so many ways. At first I thought this novel was going to be about blood and war, hence why I chose the book. But when you actually get down to the core of the novel, you really see much a more spectacular message sent within the novel. Findley not only shows the physical aspect to war, but also the mental aspect and what the war does to a person psychologically. As you read further into the book, you begin to learn about the main character Robert Ross and his morals and values he abides by. As his character develops further into the war, the reader can analyze the changes that Robert has gone through because of the war. This novel portrays that fact that war changes a soldier in many ways to the point of insanity through its many different conditions and difficulties. There are many themes that come up throughout this book. A few themes that I would consider mentioning are insanity, corruption of power, isolation, abandonment, and manliness. The major theme that is focused on primarily throughout the novel is insanity of a soldier, which is the reasoning why I drew into the depths of insanity in this blog.

The main message I found from the novel was that war in unethical. War is a very serious subject that is argued to be a leading cause of insanity in a soldier’s mind. All of the factors of war and the conditions a soldier must endure throughout WWI take a toll on a soldier’s mentality to the point of madness. Through the use of many literary devices (Stated in earlier blogs), Timothy Findley is able to convey the theme of insanity portrayed through the effects the war has on the mentality of a soldier’s mind. Timothy Findley does an outstanding job of not only portraying the physical aspects of war on a soldier, but as well the mental aspects. War is perceived as a bloody battle of guns and command, but the reality is that the true aspect of war is shadowed by these outer assumptions. The truth of war is displayed in this novel, winning Findley many awards for such that, showing that war is not only a physical battle, but also a battle of the mind to survive. Findley’s message about war is clear to the point where the outer battle of warfare is at equilibrium to the inner battle of warfare, dealing with the affects that war has on the mind of many conditions and factors the war has brought upon a soldier. War is not a game, and Findley made it clear that war has extreme affects on a soldier to the point of insanity, not only during battle, but after the fact as well. “The Wars is a great book, rich in its images, its language, its construction, and, ultimately, its conception.” –Guy Vanderhaeghe