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Comparing the Characters May from Accrington Pals and Stanhope from Journey's End, How Far Do You Agree with the View That May Seems to Alienate Herself More?

In: Novels

Submitted By MissDirection
Words 1810
Pages 8
It is obvious that both of the characters in these plays are examples of how war can make a person alienate themselves from loved ones and/or society in general. When May alienates herself from others, it is always to do with Tom. When Tom is thought to be dead, May alienates herself from the rest of the town who demand to know the truth, including her friend Eva. And also when Tom goes to leave for war, May literally pushes Tom away, clearly showing that her conflicting feelings for Tom are causing her to emotionally push him away as well. However, it is clear she hasn't completely alienated herself from him when she tries to convince CSM Rivers to let him leave the army. Stanhope is quite similar to May in that his alienation is reliant on his family and girlfriend back home, who he wishes to ignore until he can regain control of his life, and the entrance of his girlfriend's brother makes it much harder, causing him to partially break down. On the other hand, he tries to keep his team together during the days up to the battle, and he even tries to help Raleigh gain peace before death. This shows that although both characters do alienate themselves, they do also want to be accepted.
May alienates herself from society when she refuses to go with the other women for information about the pals after the battle. “'You'll come with us May-''No!'”. Here, May is obviously trying to distance herself from the town, and outright refuses to help her friend. By the way Eva assumes that May will come with them shows the audience that previous to this moment, May hadn't been alienating herself from society. The exclamation mark clearly shows the passion she has for alienating herself from the others, and the determination she has for keeping to herself. The one word response could be Whelan showing that May only looks out for herself, and is completely independent, so much so that she relies on her own hallucination-type state to know the truth, rather than join with her friends to force it out of the mayor. Although, the audience could interpret this unwillingness to help find out the truth as fear that Tom and all her male friends are dead. This explanation of her alienation could display a need of Mays not to be alienated, as she wants to be with Tom, which she can't do if she's dead. Whelan uses May to demonstrate the conflicted feelings those left behind at war feel when they discover rumours that their loved ones are dead. The Pal's were a real regiment, and after the Battle of the Somme, as the real news was being held back at the time, it was rumoured that only 7 out of approximately 1100 survived. May represents how some women alienated themselves from grief.
This contrasts with Stanhope who believes in sticking together through the hard times. “Once and for all, you're going to stay here and see it through with the rest of us.” Sherriff uses Stanhope as a vehicle for his 'One for all – all for one' message that he portrays in Journey's End. Using the collective pronoun 'us', obviously he is referring to Hibbert and the other officers, but it is thought he is referring to the entirety of Britain, including his audience, and showing that by sticking together, you can get through anything, which is what Britain did and won the war. Interestingly, the latin for 'One for all – all for one' (Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno) is Switzerland's traditional motto. In WWI, Switzerland was completely neutral, so Sherriff could be saying that by everyone looking out for each other, war is not needed. Comparatively, Stanhope alienates himself much less than May, as he literally depends on his other officers for help in the war effort, whereas May only relies on herself. Hibbert, nonetheless, does alienate himself by trying to fake neuralgia. Sherriff himself left the war due to this disease, and therefore alienated himself from his fellow soldiers. Using Stanhope as a device to represent the authority, he shows that, by his own experiences, alienation does nothing to help in coping with the war. With May seeming like she has psychologically broken down by hallucinating about her dead love interest, Whelan is demonstrating that alienation is also not useful when coping with the war.

May, physically and emotionally pushes Tom away from her. “TOM suddenly tries to embrace her. MAY isn't able to respond. She pushes him away” These stage directions represent May's inability to be loved or cared for as, from previous information about her, it is assumed that she has always alienated herself from people, even Tom who she has lived with and worked with for years. Whelan uses physical movement on stage rather than just getting May to tell Tom to go away as a representation to the audience that she emotionally can't handle affection, and actually doesn't want to be passionate about anyone other than herself. She is so caught up in her feminist ways that she physically can't handle anyone else caring for her, especially someone she has cared for for years. The phrase 'isn't able' demonstrates that it isn't a choice May is making, she is actually isn't capable of showing emotion towards another person, even one she has known and even loved for years. It could be considered that her alienation of herself and Tom is just her way of trying not to get too attached in case he dies in battle. So, in this case, war has actually caused her alienation, and made her believe she can only rely on herself. Her isolation from others could also just be because she hasn't experienced affection before, and just needs to learn to trust others. Stanhope also tries to push his girlfriend away from his life, due to being ashamed of who he has become. “You know he'll write and tell her I reek of whiskey all day.”Just like May, Stanhope doesn't want to show any sort of affection towards his love, and tries to isolate himself from her. The distance between them, from France to England, is almost what May wishes for when she pushes Tom away. They both believe that by having the space between them and their partners, they can protect themselves or their loved ones. Stanhope specifically doesn't want Raleigh's sister finding out about his alcoholism as he believes he needs to be better to deserve her, so he alienates himself from her to save her the shame. They are both similar in that May alienates herself as she is afraid of loving Tom in case he dies, and Stanhope alienates himself in case his girlfriend hates Stanhope for who he has become and thinks she will leave him. They both isolate themselves as they don't want to be alone. This juxtaposition shows exactly how the war affects different people. When Stanhope refers to 'You', the obvious answer is that he is talking to Osborne, but Sherriff could be getting Stanhope to talk to the whole audience, to get them to feel pity for him, and understand his situation. This is similar to Whelan using stage directions as the physical part of that scene shows May's true feelings, and the audience pity her for not holding on tight.

May tries to stop Tom going to war which shows she cares for him. “He mustn’t go!” Again, the punctuation of this sentence with the exclamation mark shows passion, just like it was explained in the first paragraph. However, instead of this representing May’s alienation towards society, it signifies her need to be with Tom, and for Tom to survive which completely opposes the idea of her alienating herself from him. When she says that Tom ‘mustn’t’ go, she shows an innate need for him, and the audience truly believes that she loves him, and thus wants to be with him and consequently doesn’t want to detach herself from him or society. Alternatively, May could be trying to stop Tom going to war because she feels responsible for him, and by letting him go and maybe die, she will feel guilty. This goes back to the point stated in the first paragraph that she in only looking out for herself, and just doesn’t want to feel responsible for his death.
Stanhope proves he cares for Raleigh and wants to help him gain peace. “It's not your fault, Jimmy” By referring to Raleigh’s first name, this, like May, shows caring for him, and raises their previous friendship from before the war. Stanhope is trying to care for him, like a father and son. This is just like with May and Tom, as May seems to feel a maternal love towards Tom due to their age difference. As well as this, Stanhope could be blaming himself for Raleigh getting hurt, as if it wasn’t for him going to war and being a hero to Raleigh, then Raleigh would never had asked to join his regiment. This is just like a father figure who blames themselves for their child’s pain. This proves Stanhope hasn’t alienated himself from everyone, as he cares for Raleigh. Another interpretation of May and Stanhope’s situation is the subtle anti-war message the playwrights are emitting. Whelan uses May’s conversation with CSM Rivers to illustrate his repulsion of officers who just want more soldiers as weapons than actual living people. Even though he promises to look after Tom, Tom still dies. The refusal to let Tom out of the army is what it could be believed caused her to start alienating herself from others. Similar to this, Sherriff utilises Stanhope to indicate that the ‘fault’ to why Raleigh died is left with the higher ranking officers who ordered them to stay in the trenches, and even more so, the governments for starting the war just to gain power.

May and Stanhope both show that they do alienate themselves from people and certain situations. They both alienate themselves from their respective partners, and from the war itself to an extent. But Stanhope doesn’t try to alienate himself from the people around him, so much so that he tries to keep them all together at any cost. May seems to try to alienate herself from anyone in fear of pain. Nevertheless, they both show caring for others, and prove that they don’t always alienate themselves from those they care for. Collectively, due to the evidence above, May seems to alienate herself a lot more than Stanhope does, shutting society out of her life once Tom goes to war, whereas Stanhope tries to only distance himself from those relating to his previous life, and then reverses this at the end when he helps Raleigh die peacefully.

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