Character Analysis
Characters in Journey’s End
Sherriff populates his dugout with a carefully chosen group of characters who represent different responses to war. For the Edexcel exam, you need to be able to write about how each character is presented, what they reveal about the play’s themes, and how Sherriff uses them to explore the effects of conflict on individuals. Remember that Section B tests AO1 (your response and use of quotations) and AO3 (context), so always link character analysis to the historical period.
Captain Stanhope
Stanhope is the protagonist and the most complex character in the play. He is twenty-one years old, has been at the front for three years without leave, and is the longest-serving officer in the battalion. He is a brilliant and dedicated commander — Osborne calls him “a long way the best company commander we’ve got” — but he is also an alcoholic who drinks to suppress the psychological damage of prolonged combat.
Stanhope’s central conflict is between the person he was (a popular, heroic schoolboy) and the person the war has made him (a traumatised, dependent wreck). His fear about Raleigh’s letter reveals this split: he is terrified that his fiancée Madge will learn the truth. His line “You think there’s no limit to what a man can bear?” is the play’s most direct expression of psychological breaking point.
Stanhope’s alcoholism is not weakness but survival. He says that without being “doped with whiskey” he would “go mad with fright.” Sherriff presents a young man who has been pushed beyond his limits by a war that offers no support for mental health. His fierce loyalty, his tenderness with the dying Raleigh, and his refusal to leave the front all show that duty and damage can coexist.
Osborne is the oldest officer in the company, a former schoolmaster and rugby player, and the emotional heart of the group. He is nicknamed “uncle” because of his paternal, caring nature. He defends Stanhope to Hardy, reassures Raleigh, reads Alice in Wonderland, and keeps the small daily routines going — quiet acts of kindness that hold the group together.
Osborne represents the gentlemanly ideal: calm, decent, selfless. His death during the raid is the play’s emotional turning point. Sherriff kills the most universally loved character to show that war does not spare the good. Osborne’s reading of Alice in Wonderland before the raid connects his innocence to the absurdity of the world he is about to enter — a world where decency offers no protection.
Second Lieutenant Raleigh
Raleigh is the youngest and most inexperienced officer, fresh from England and eager to serve. He hero-worships Stanhope from their school days and pulled strings to be posted to his company. Raleigh functions as the audience’s entry point into the world of the trenches: his naïveté mirrors our own unfamiliarity, and his gradual loss of innocence mirrors the broader disillusionment caused by the war.
Raleigh admires Stanhope deeply. His letter home — “Dennis is the finest officer in the battalion” — shows the schoolboy bond that Stanhope fears the war has destroyed. His refusal to eat at the dinner after Osborne’s death shows genuine moral feeling, but also reveals his inability to understand the coping mechanisms that front-line soldiers need. His death on Osborne’s bed completes his journey from innocent to casualty, and Stanhope’s tenderness in that scene finally reconciles the two men.
Trotter is a cheerful, uncomplicated officer from a lower-middle-class background. He talks constantly about food, draws circles on a chart to count down the hours of each duty period, and provides comic relief through his blunt, good-natured personality. His coping mechanism is to focus on small, tangible pleasures — the next meal, the next rest period — rather than thinking about the bigger picture.
Trotter is often underestimated in exam answers, but he is important. He represents the ordinary soldier who survives by not thinking too deeply. His promotion to replace Osborne after the raid shows that the war values endurance over sensitivity. Sherriff uses Trotter to contrast with the more emotionally complex Stanhope and Osborne — his simplicity is both his strength and his limitation.
Second Lieutenant Hibbert
Hibbert is the most controversial character in the play. He claims to have neuralgia and asks to be sent to the rear, but Stanhope sees through his excuse and threatens to shoot him. Hibbert represents the fear that every soldier felt but most suppressed. His attempt to escape is not simply cowardice; it is a human response to intolerable conditions.
What makes Hibbert interesting is that Stanhope admits he has felt the same way. The difference between them is not that Stanhope is braver — it is that Stanhope’s sense of duty is stronger. Sherriff blurs the line between courage and cowardice, suggesting that both are responses to the same impossible situation. Hibbert challenges the audience to consider whether they would behave any differently.
Hibbert and Stanhope are two sides of the same coin. Both are terrified. Stanhope stays because of duty and alcohol; Hibbert tries to leave because he has no coping mechanism. Sherriff asks whether the line between courage and cowardice is really as clear as the military system demands.
Mason is the officers’ cook and batman. He provides gentle comic relief through his deadpan reports on the food (“It’s yellow soup, sir”) and his earnest attempts to make the best of terrible supplies. Mason humanises the dugout and reminds the audience that even in war, people cling to the routines of normal life.
The Colonel represents the military hierarchy. He orders the dangerous raid, dismisses Stanhope’s objection that Raleigh has only just arrived, and sends champagne to celebrate the capture of a prisoner — apparently indifferent to Osborne’s death. The Colonel is not a villain, but his detachment from the human cost of his orders illustrates the gap between those who give commands and those who carry them out.
Together, these characters form a cross-section of the officer class: the heroic wreck (Stanhope), the steady mentor (Osborne), the innocent newcomer (Raleigh), the cheerful pragmatist (Trotter), the man at breaking point (Hibbert), and the detached authority (the Colonel). Each responds to the war differently, and Sherriff uses their contrasts to explore the full range of human responses to conflict.