Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Wars, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and War
Blame, Revenge, and Justice
Loss of Innocence
Honor, Duty, and Heroism
Summary
Analysis
The narration switches to the reader’s point of view: you are told that you are looking through Robert’s old family photographs that are kept in the public archives, along with maps, letters, newspaper clippings, and other memorabilia from the war. These “fragments” symbolize an entire age, and the past seems to disintegrate as you sort through the materials.
The fragmentary memories in the archives are a symbolic representation of the World War I era. During this time, people’s personal lives, societal structures, and belief systems were fragmented by the traumatic violence of the war. Findley also employs postmodern techniques like using the second-person tense as ways to disrupt the narrative.
Themes
