WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?,

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Term Paper Title	WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?,
# of Words	814
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.26

WAR,
WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?,
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

BY: JOHN BARASCO



     A soldier once posed this question to his fellow comrade, "do you think we will ever be

forgiven for what we have done?". The comrade replied, "I doubt we'll ever be forgiven. All I

hope is - they'll remember we were human beings." In Timothy Findley's The Wars, a

generation of young men were swept into a war  and it's effects rippled throughout their lives.

The characters in the novel are wounded physically, emotionally and mentally by the war's

presence in their lives. Soldiers and their families that had this great grief  woven into their lives

experienced horrific acts and painful emotions, all of which left behind either mental or physical

scars.

     The physical effects the war had on the victims of the novel are more than clear to the

eye. Their scars, absent limbs and burned skins, inflicted by war are hard to miss. Robert Ross

first realized the brutality of war  when he visited a hospital to see a friend. There in the same

room lay a man who had been victim of a gas attack, "the flesh was seared as if it were dipped in

scalding oil".(Findley_124). Seeing this surely sent a chill down Roberts back, because he knew

that in his uncertain future, the same could happen to him. The second time Robert experienced

the physical effects of war was upon meeting an old acquaintance. His army lieutenant, whom

he had remembered as a fit and active man, "had lost his arms, limbless from the waist up."

(Findley_187). The thought of an agile and cautious man like lieutenant Taffler, not being able

to keep out of the way of a shell scared Robert even more. There is no question that the power of

war is strong enough to twist steel and brake bones, however, pain can also be felt through no

physical contact.



     The emotions felt by the characters while involved with the war were immense, fighting

for family, home and above all life. The emotional feelings which shook Robert the most, were

the ones that made him realize just how fragile life was and how close he had come to losing his

own. "The vibrant valley through which he had once marched, was filled with shell holes,

upturned earth and corpses, one on top of another."(Findley_149)  If Robert and his company

had marched through that same valley three days later, they would have all been massacred. On

one occasion ...

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