War is a fact of life. As long as there are humans, there will be war. In past times, for a man to go to war, it was viewed as romantic and heroic. But, these ideas have faded and vanished throughout the course of the 20th century. War can be horrific, like a bad nightmare, and can easily break the human spirit, which is not a t all fragile. In his novel, "The Wars", Timothy Findley develops the idea that war, in and of itself, is meaningless, unjustified, and irrational. PART I
"The Wars" is a story told by means of a (fictional) historic research document. The plot is pieced together from different accounts and recollections from a handful of different fictional people. The effect of this technique is that the author cannot include …show more content…

War can cause men to be destructive, immoral, and irrational, and to Timothy Findley, it doesn't make any sense. Once stationed in Europe, Robert and his regimen are dropped abruptly into the battlefield, exposing them for the first time to the nightmare world known as trench warfare. Robert has many painful experiences, loses several friends, and brushes with death on many occasions. Throughout madness and horror, there is never justification. In time, there seems to be no reason for any of the fighting and killing and suffering. Furthermore, Findley does not ever mention the cause of World War 1, or how the different sides were involved, or mention any background whatsoever. All that is seen is the fighting, and in great detail. This goes to support the theme, that war is not rational. The reader is shown nothing but negative examples of the war, never a victory, never the means, and never the end. C In the end of the book, Robert does something completely unexpected and unusual. When a barn full of horses is threatened in an artillery battle, Robert suggests to his superior officer that the horses be freed, as not to waste their lives. His commander , panic-stricken, refuses. When Robert disobeys him and starts to free the animals, his commander becomes furious and threatens to kill him. Robert shoots him between the eyes