The Wars

A detailed Summary of The Wars

Timothy Findley's novel The Wars shows the cruelty and perversity of the First World War. However, as the plural in the title suggests, it is more than just a story about the historical war. War also works on a metaphorical level. In fact, there are three wars in it that contain a pacifist message. The war of technology against nature is the most obvious. It shows that if people destroy nature, a livable environment is no longer provided. Another war, which is not that obvious at first, is the struggle of Robert Ross to become a natural person again and to cope with all the changes his career as a soldier has created within him. His inner struggle leads us directly to the third big war, the war against obedience that reappears constantly in the novel. Findley suggests that everybody should take more responsibility for his action and to question authority.

Here we discuss how Findley portrays these struggles for humanity. Findley introduces us from the very first moment to the war of technology against nature. In the first line Findley represents a horse as a symbol of nature alienated by war-machinery: "She was standing in the middle of the railroad tracks. Her head was bowed and her right front foot was raised as if she r

The second metaphoric war in the novel is a different one. It is not a war between two physical parties. It occurs inside Robert. At the beginning of the novel he is a natural person who has a lot of moral values. The more the story proceeds the more he becomes involved into things that authorities want him to do. The first example is his arbitrary killing of his sister's rabbits. As Robert is refusing to kill the rabbits his father is getting someone, a soldier, who kills the rabbits. Robert is attacking this person to stop him from doing it: "Robert yelled at him something like:?you bastard! Bastard! What are soldiers for??[...] Robert regained his feet and lunged, butting his head like a battering ram between the giant's shoulder blades" (25). Robert tries to fight for the lives of the rabbits but is not successful. He loses the lives of the animals but he has not lost his virginity of not having killed. After this incident, Robert's decision is to leave home and to join the army. We get the impression that he tries to escape from the things happened at home. When Robert arrives in Kingston, Ontario we can see him doubt if he is doing the right thing. He is not sure if he really wants to go to join the army or if he should go back home: "Right to the very last second - hearing an approaching train that might have taken him home - he did not know in which direction he would go" (20). His choice is to go to war with all the physical and psychological threat connected with it. The result of the decision to become a soldier is that he sees himself confronted with a lot of things that he does not want to do. He becomes a tool within the military machinery of the First World War.

ested. [...] Behind her, a warehouse with medical supplies had just caught fire" (9). This horse stands right in the middle of the scenery of war surrounded by chaos. Through this image Findley introduces us to nature's alienation from its natural way of being by human beings' war machinery. It establishes a pattern of cruelty that grows throughout the novel.

The Wars is a novel that has a very strong pacifist message. Findley embedded this within a story about one of the most brutal and cruel wars that has happened in history. The conclusions that we get out of the three wars lead to the same fact. Timothy Findley wants to tell us that the world could be a much better place if everybody takes more responsibility for the things that he or she is doing. This includes maintaining our planet and making careful political decisions. Suppose there is a war and nobody goes to it!

Most cruelties against nature in this novel are committed without any stated reason given. The first barbarism that we hear of is the killing of the rabbits of Robert's sister Rowenna. For no particular reason the family hires a soldier to kill the rabbits: "Why do the rabbits have to be killed?" asks Robert. "Because they were hers," replies his mother (22). This appears to be an arbitrary act of killing.

The more Robert becomes involved into the military milieu the more his believes are threatened. On the ship to England he has to kill a living creature for the first time. He has to kill a horse with a broken leg:

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Approximate Word count = 2163
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English