My Boy Jack is about the famous British author Rudyard Kipling and his belief that all young men have a responsibility to defend their country. This is why Rudyard wants his son Jack to fight in World War I. In fact, he obsesses over the importance of sacrifice and bravery so much that he ignores the very real possibility that Jack might die in combat. Of course, he’s aware that Jack might die, but he overlooks this upsetting possibility because he believes so strongly in the value of putting oneself in danger for a greater purpose. However, the play challenges this romanticization of bravery by highlighting Rudyard’s struggle after Jack dies a gruesome death in the trenches. Rudyard tries to ease the pain of losing his only son by focusing on the supposed “glory” of dying in battle, but it’s unclear if this brings him true comfort. Even Rudyard’s wife, Carrie, doesn’t believe him—she believes that all of his talk about honorable sacrifice is just a “performance,” not something that actually makes him feel better about Jack’s death. In this way, the play questions whether or not idealizing duty and bravery makes it any easier to cope with the real-life experience of losing a loved one—even in the name of honor.
Rudyard’s gung-ho ideas about integrity and responsibility allow him to approach the horror of war in abstract, idealized ways. Instead of focusing on the gruesome violence, he mainly thinks about the “glory” of defending one’s own country. In other words, by romanticizing the idea of duty, he manages to avoid thinking about his own son dying in battle. For instance, when Jack is reported missing in action, Carrie immediately worries that he’s dead, but Rudyard’s deep appreciation of bravery and sacrifice insulates him from this fear. He insists that, if Jack is dead, his death “will have been the finest moment of his young life.” This reaction shows Rudyard’s strong belief in the value of things like courage, but it also emphasizes just how much he has glamorized dying in battle—so much, it seems, that he almost completely overlooks the pain of losing a son.
But the play casts doubt on whether or not Rudyard’s idealistic viewpoints are truly as reassuring to him as they seem. He likes the idea that Jack died for something bigger than himself, since this lends purpose to the boy’s otherwise senseless and violent death. And yet, Carrie suggests that Rudyard doesn’t find quite as much comfort in this thought as he lets on. When he first learns that Jack has died, he doesn’t immediately break into tears, but instead slowly processes the news and then says, “He led his men from the front, and was courageous in the face of considerable enemy fire.” He clearly says this as a way of making himself feel better, but Carrie doesn’t go along with this idea. She simply doesn’t find the thought helpful—after all, it doesn’t change the fact that her only son is gone.
Carrie shows a similar kind of skepticism when Rudyard says, “It was a short life, but in a sense complete. I’m happy for him, and proud of him, aren’t you?” She doesn’t dignify this idea with a response. It’s almost as if her unwillingness to even entertain such thoughts only makes Rudyard more desperate to convince her (and, perhaps, himself) that Jack died for a good reason. But Carrie isn’t “happy for” Jack. To the contrary, she’s devastated by his death. To show the absurdity of her husband’s unhelpful ideas about honor, then, she reminds him of the exact circumstances of their son’s death, saying, “He died in the rain, he couldn’t see a thing, he was alone, in pain, you can’t persuade me there is any glory in that.” Carrie challenges the notion that a brave death is an honorable one. To Carrie, it doesn’t matter what her son was fighting for, since the end result is that he died a painful death in the trenches. Her grounded (and depressing) viewpoint helps illustrate that Rudyard’s romanticized ideas about honor are out of touch with the bleak reality of Jack’s death.
Perhaps because his romanticization of “glory” is so out of touch with reality, Rudyard has a hard time maintaining his idealistic outlook after definitively learning that Jack has died. Carrie recognizes Rudyard’s difficulty when she comments that she doesn’t think he really believes in his own values surrounding bravery. Rudyard defensively insists that he does, saying, “I must ‘believe’ in order to survive at all,” but his response ironically confirms her accusation, since he is in fact confirming his wife’s implication that he clings to idealistic thoughts as a way of protecting himself from the pain of losing Jack. By saying that he has to “believe” in honor and bravery, he essentially admits that his ideals are all he has left. When Carrie pushes him on this point, he starts sobbing, admitting that he’s tormented by the possibility that he’s responsible for Jack’s death. Through Rudyard’s final overwhelming grief, the play illustrates that simple idealistic ideas about glory and honor aren’t enough to fully protect him from grief, or, by extension, to justify the senseless death and destruction of war.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Bravery, Duty, and Honor ThemeTracker
Bravery, Duty, and Honor Quotes in My Boy Jack
CARRIE. He's too young.
RUDYARD. He is not a boy, he is a young man. If you continue to pamper and paw him, you will turn him into something altogether weak and watery…the next few hours will be a serious point in his career.
CARRIE. Do you think it's fair to encourage him?
RUDYARD. I would think it very unfair if I didn't. Within a year, by the end of 1914, we shall be fighting for civilisation itself, one wouldn't want him to miss an opportunity to be part of that.
SPARKS. […] this is very severe myopia ...we couldn't possibly… (He turns to POTTLE for help.)
POTTLE. Not possibly. There are very strict guidelines.
SPARKS. I think [Pottle] would agree, we were prepared to, um, stretch a point…very keen to stretch a point, but…
POTTLE. There has to be a limit.
SPARKS. I'm sure you understand.
RUDYARD. Yes I understand, but his spectacles are extremely effective.
SPARKS. But if he should lose them he'd be a danger to himself.
POTTLE. And to his men.
RUDYARD. Ladies and Gentlemen. We are a people who have never known invasion, have never known the shame of seeing a foreign army on our soil. A people whose soul is as strong and as old as the English oak, and as constant as the brook that cuts deep into the soft valley soil.
They will teach our bricklayers to lay bricks the German way. They will instruct our farmers to use larger fields and cut down the hedges. They will tell us what to eat and how to eat it, what to mine and how to mine it, what to say and when to say it. Our towns will be re-named, and every book, newspaper, map, and signpost will be written in German first, English second. And in your corner shop when you buy your ounce of German tobacco, you will pay, not in pounds, shillings, and pence, but in German marks. And yet this government still supports a system of voluntary service.
But there is of course a pernicious minority who do not intend to inconvenience themselves for any consideration.
We must demand that every fit young man come forward to enlist. And that every young man who chooses to remain at home, be shunned by his community.
Only our unity, our strength, and our courage can save us from destruction.
RUDYARD (very quietly). There is a price we have to pay. There is a risk we all have to take. Jack knows that. Germany will go on killing by all the means in its power. She must either win or bleed to death. Therefore we must continue to pass our children through fire, until somehow we win and destroy her.
RUDYARD. Before I married, I lived in the pocket of my true friend, Woolcot. We ate together, we jawed together—about everything, we even wrote together, and then he upped and died of Typhoid. He was twenty-seven, and I was very fond of him. And for a long while I had the general feeling that the world was a wicked place. But you have to take your dose.
JOHN. Do you?
RUDYARD. You sit it out. You wait. Eventually you heal up. I'll tell you something old man, I wish I could be in your shoes now. I wish that I could share with you that clean, honourable task which is ahead of you.
JOHN. […] Please God I mustn't let them down. Will I be brave? Will I fail?—Onto the firestep—keep the pistol out of the mud—left hand on the parapet—pull—right foot on the sand bags—push up—left leg over—Straighten—run—I mustn't let them down. Some of these men will be dead tonight. I may be dead tonight. Let me live. Stop raining—just for a second.
Oh Daddo—what luxury—to turn on a hot water tap—hot steaming water—evening clothes—dinner at the Ritz—the Alhambra afterwards. Elsie. Mother. Daddo.—My first action—Fifteen seconds—is that the whistle?—one clear blast—left hand—parapet—sand bags—over—run. Run fast and straight. Please God let me live. Pistol high—run, run, run.
RUDYARD. […] Why should I stop him? If I had, he would have suffered a living death here, ashamed and despised by everyone. Could you bear that? … It's true. How would he hold his head up, whilst his friends risked death in France? How would he walk down the high street, or into a shop? He wouldn't. He would stay indoors, growing weaker and quieter by the day. Unable to leave his room. And he would wish he was dead.
CARRIE. People would understand.
RUDYARD. No they would not. They know what we are fighting for. They know we must go forward, willing to sacrifice everything to deliver mankind from evil.
CARRIE. Yes that's very fine. But will you believe that tomorrow? Today is the last day you can believe that.
RUDYARD. Carrie, if by any chance Jack is dead, it will have been the finest moment in his young life. We would not wish him to outlive that.
CARRIE. You don't believe that Rud. I know you don't. There is no need to say that to me.
RUDYARD. No sacrifice…is too great…no sacrifice, however painful, is too great…if we win the day…
ELSIE (angry and upset). You've missed the point haven't you? God! You just…You've no idea. God!
Silence. RUDYARD and CARRIE are helpless.
Don't you realise, he didn't give a damn about your cause? The reason he went to France, the reason he went to get his head shot off, was to get away from us! He couldn't bear us any more.
Short silence.
The suffocation, the love, the expectation. That's why he went.
RUDYARD. How did he seem?
BOWE. What do you mean?
RUDYARD. Well, was he calm or…excited or…nervous…?
BOWE. He was fine, you know, jus' fine.
RUDYARD. Did he seem…pleased to be there?
BOWE. Pleased? No-one's pleased to be there. He was fine. He told us we had to go on.
RUDYARD. Did he?
RUDYARD (quietly). Thank you…so…he was killed by a shell…during an attack on 'Puits Bis l4'. He led his men from the front, and was courageous in the face of considerable enemy fire.
BOWE. He was. Yes sir. Very courageous.
RUDYARD. Thank you.
RUDYARD. […] By all accounts he was very brave.
He didn't have a long time in the trenches. But he had his heart's desire. So few of us have the opportunity to play our part. Properly. But he did. He worked like the devil. It's a shame that all the effort should end in one afternoon, but he achieved what he set out to achieve. It was a short life, but in a sense complete. I'm happy for him, and proud of him, aren't you?
[…]
CARRIE. I’m so relieved that you see the death of our only son as such a positive and uplifting event. I am sincerely relieved that you are at ease with it all.
RUDYARD. […] I find it a great comfort that so many are in our position, don't you? It is a common agony. A common sacrifice.
CARRE. No I don't find that comforting. I don't care how many people it's happened to. That doesn't help me at all. Not at all…no.
CARRIE. […] Your cruelty doesn’t surprise me. You are a cold fish, a very cold fish. But that's alright, I know that now. It doesn't hurt me, but don't pretend anymore. Jack was eighteen years and six weeks old. He died in the rain, he couldn't see a thing, he was alone, in pain, you can't persuade me there is any glory in that.
RUDYARD. I believe there is.
[…]
I must ‘believe’ in order to survive at all.
“Oh dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide
Nor any tide
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more
This tide,
And every tide,
Because he was the son you bore
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.
