The Wars Minor Characters Analysis

Minor Characters Analysis of “The War”
Basically, Timothy Findley’s “The Wars” describes the history of Robert Ross, a young soldier in the Canadian Army during the World War I. Throughout the novel, Findley illustrates the destructiveness of war by showing the changes that Robert has gone through because of the war. More importantly, Findley has also uses many different minor characters in the novel to develop his condemnation of war. The followings are some of the major demonstrations that I have been analysed through these minor characters of the novel.
As we can see, the inevitability of change is one of the most vital themes in “The Wars”. Findley depicts the negative effects of war not only on the main character, Robert, but also his family members and friends as well. Mrs. Ross, Robert’s mother, is one of the most obvious examples that are greatly affected by the war. Mrs. Ross is filled with great anger when she knows that Robert is leaving to join the war overseas, since she loves and cares so much about her son. Lately, she starts growing distance from her family and she hides herself from the public. The only thing that makes her feel clear is her son’s daily letters that she keeps reading over and over again. Findley writes, “All she wanted was to sit in the corner of the room and watch the door for Robert’s return.” (69), it is the whole point of her life as the war goes by. After hearing news that Robert is “missing in action”, (179) it drives Mrs. Ross totally insane, she even loses her sight by experiencing the extreme depression. Through the character of Mrs. Ross, Findley is trying to portray how the war can ruin not only the lives of soldiers but also their innocent family members.
In fact, Mrs. Ross is not the only character to be negatively affected by the war. Findley has provided a great effort of portraying the physical aspects of war on a soldier but as well as the mental aspects. One such character is Rodwell. Rodwell is one of…