Journey's End by R.C. Sherriff

D’you ever get a sudden feeling that everything’s going farther and farther away – till you’re the only thing in the world – and then the world begins going away – until you’re the only thing in – in the universe – and you struggle to get back – and can’t?

The fear of death is a terrible thing, but for Stanhope it is outweighed by his terrible fear of losing his reputation as a hero. Just as he uses whiskey to fuel his strength and character, he uses death in a similar way. Unlike the other characters, who simply avoid it, he forces himself to face it again and again, and finally it gives him strength.

This is revealed perhaps more than anywhere else in the dramatic scene where Stanhope threatens to shoot Hibbert with his revolver. The way in which the weaker man is manipulated by the stronger is both fascinating and repulsive to the audience, but it includes an important lesson in what lies at the core of Stanhope’s psychology. When he says to Hibbert at the end of the latter’s ordeal, ‘Good man, Hibbert. I liked the way you stuck that,’ it is as though he is inducting Hibbert into the mental state in which facing the certainty of death actually brings about a new strength of character.

This is living on the edge, however, and, as a strategy, it is destroying all semblance of Stanhope’s true personality. All it takes is Raleigh’s injury for the real man inside to revive and take over. He does everything he can to preserve ‘Jimmy’s’ life, even though his survival risks his own memorial. Finally, the man who has addicted himself to whiskey and to fantasies of death becomes his true self again – friend to James Raleigh and the fiancé of Madge, and Sherriff allows him to die with his final human dignity intact.


ACT ONE
Page 1 (Page references are to the Heinemann editions)


‘CAPTAIN HARDY, a red faced, cheerful-looking man…intently drying a sock over a candle flame .’ – Sherriff chooses to start his play with a humorous image that causes the audience to let down their guard. Everything seems happy and relaxed: the contrast when the real situation becomes clear is all the more effective. The audience are made to focus first on a candle which will become significant at the end of the play.