The Wars.. Part 1 cont'd

          After where I left off, his mother is introduced to the readers. She seems like a reason he may have hated his life. She's opposite from any motherly symbol; she drinks, smokes, walks in on him taking a bath and asks him to kill the rabbits which her daughter died because of. She may be distraught but I still find it a bit weird that she would walk in on her son bathing to tell him not to leave for war. Why when he's bathing and getting rid of his bruises and scars? Why could she not do this afterwards or before? She's being motherly but it's so ironic that the way she's being portayed seems like she could be the worst mother out there judging from the cigarette in her hand and the fact that she's drunk talking to her son. That is definitely not a good influence.I sense a bit of the Oedipus complex building in this story.. this time it's not the son being attracted to his mother, but something reversed. There are still no mentions of his father yet.. perhaps this is why his mother is a alcoholic and walks in on her son/ depends on him?

THE WARS by Timothy Findley

Okay, so thus far, our protagonist Robert Ross has enlisted in the army after the death of his sister which he feels guilty about because she fell out of her wheelchair in their barn while playing with her rabbits. The reason he couldn't save her? He was making love to his pillow. This shows how lonely he is.. perhaps a theme in the novel? He's lost his sister, his significant other is his pillow. There's also a lot of imagery on nature.. the barn, the rabbits. This book takes place in a very rural area. This may also link back to being alone, as we all know that rural areas with barns, etc. do not have a very large population. From he fact that he has joined the army, we can tell that he is trying to punish himself, because the army is a strict place where the soldiers are not very familiar with others and all alone. This shows his responsibility..or lack of it. He was supposed to watch over his sister, Rowena because she was in a wheelchair. There was not anyone else responsible to watch, I assume. So, this is our most responsible character as far as I have read.

Also, seeing as his sister played with rabbits and was in a wheelchair, her character gives off a vibe of dependancy on Robert and a sense of innocence (playing with rabbits is something children would usually do, not grown adults, and the imagery of children is usually related to innocence, therefore the hypothesis).

The novel is called "the wars".. could this imply not just the wars which Robert will be fighting as a soldier but also his inner struggle of guilt and lonliness?