Brutal To Raleigh After Osborne's Death example essay topic

Why is Stanhope so brutal to Raleigh after Osborne's death? Who do you feel more sorry for, and why? I think Stanhope is so brutal to Raleigh after Osborne's death because he is missing Osborne and mourning for him inside, and blames Osborne's death on Raleigh. Although it is not Raleigh's fault, and it is inevitable that Osborne should die, Stanhope seems to take it out on Raleigh. I think that it is nothing personal towards Raleigh, Raleigh just happens to be there and annoy Stanhope when Stanhope is at his most vulnerable. The other men such as Trotter and Hibbert seem to be getting on with their lives and although they are obviously upset, any unhappiness that there may be, they seem to hide and they try not to think about what has happened to Osborne.

Stanhope also tries to do this. Raleigh is new to life on the front line and does not know that people die everyday on duty. He has not yet learnt that it is just something that people have to learn to deal with and accept. Because he is unaware of this, he is horrified that there is no proper memorial service to Osborne and that the men just get on and get drunk and feast. Stanhope gets angry with Raleigh because Raleigh is not getting on with his life like the other men and feasting so when Stanhope sees Raleigh quiet and upset, it is obvious to him that Raleigh is thinking of Osborne. He knows that Raleigh is thinking of Osborne and this prompts him to think of Osborne himself and he gets angry with Raleigh for not letting him get on without thinking of Osborne and for making him dwell in the disaster of the situation.

I think Stanhope starts off a bit like Raleigh (silent and blatantly upset) as soon as he finds out that Osborne has been killed, as he speaks to the colonel in a very flat tone and is annoyed that all the colonel cares about is whether or not the brigadier is pleased and that it reflects well on him. The colonel says that it is "Splendid!" that the German boy has been taken and how pleased the brigadier will be and isn't really sensitive to Stanhope's feelings, and seems to disregard the fact that a man from Stanhope's company, further still, his second in command and his best friend, has been killed and that upsets and annoys Stanhope. Stanhope is bitter and again speaks with a flat and expressionless voice when Raleigh sits on Osborne's bed. He is not brutal to Raleigh as such, as he is in too much shock to be mean as the realisation is just starting to hit him but he thinks that Raleigh is being a little disrespectful and speaks in an 'I want you out of my sight' tone. Stanhope changes a lot once he has been drinking though, as the alcohol makes him more lively when he is dining with the other men but also more aggressive towards Raleigh in a later scene. When Raleigh comes down to the dugout after dinner is finished, Stanhope is incredibly brutal to him.

Stanhope is angry that Raleigh ate with the other men outside the company because it meant that Raleigh wasn't doing what he should " ve been doing- pretending that nothing was wrong and laughing with the company. If Stanhope is not allowed to mourn over his best friend (as mourning over a lost officer was not the done thing), he sees no reason why Raleigh should, when Raleigh had only known him a few days and they weren't even extremely close. Raleigh seems offended that nothing has been done to remember Osborne by and thinks that nobody cares. He doesn't seem to understand that everyone cares, they just want to forget about it to lessen the pain. He doesn't realise until Stanhope's outburst at the end of Act Three, scene two that it is just their way of dealing with Osborne's death. Raleigh keeps thinking of excuses about why he wasn't feasting with the men, "I I wasn't hungry.

I had rather a headache. It's cooler up there", but Stanhope knows the real reason and won't let him get away with it. Stanhope orders Raleigh to eat his dinner but Raleigh refuses and says that he can't "sit down and eat that [his dinner] when Osborne's lying out there. ". At that point, Stanhope reveals how much Osborne meant to him and how much he misses him and that the drinking and smoking cigars is just to help him deal with the pain and to forget that it's all happened. Raleigh then apologises but Stanhope is still brutal and tells him to "Get out, For God's sake, get out!" I think this is because until this point, Stanhope has been almost dealing with it but talking to Raleigh has brought it all back and Stanhope just wants to be left by his own so he can think about Osborne, and try and think about what he's going to do.

I think the main reason why Stanhope is so brutal to Raleigh is because Raleigh is reminding him of Osborne, and he is trying to get over that because it makes him feel lonely and upset. I am not sure whether I feel more sorry for Raleigh or Stanhope. I feel sorry for Stanhope because he has lost, in his words, "his best friend, the one man he could talk to, who understood everything" and he does not feel that he can cope without him. He also has to drink in order to get over his fear and the stress that is laid upon him and he has to make important life-changing decisions without his best friend and second in command by his side to help him out. To be driven to that much anger, to feel so alone that you are that cruel to your fianc " ee's brother, and someone you treat as your own younger brother, is a horrible thing to have to feel and to be forced into drinking every night means that Stanhope must have been led to despair and to be faced with those hard emotions must be almost impossible for him, and that's why I feel sorry for him. On the other hand, Raleigh is not aware until the end of the scene why Stanhope is being so cruel to him and Raleigh has to watch someone that he considers a best friend, a hero, someone he looked up to, his sister's fianc'e, treating him like that, and just ignoring the fact that a good man has died on the battlefield.

His impressions of Stanhope have changed more than ever seemed possible in a couple of days, and although he sees what war has done to his good old friend from school, Dennis, he doesn't quite understand. Raleigh is just so na " ive and inexperienced that he doesn't know how to react and is probably affected a lot by Osborne's death because not only does he have the pain of a friend dying, he also has the pain of feeling that he's all alone and that nobody else cares, when in fact they do, but he is unaware of that. I feel very sorry for both of them, as both have to live in horrible conditions, with the terrors of war at their doorstep and neither of them can deal with it as much as they both (particularly Raleigh) previously anticipated.