The Wars

The Wars: Animal Imagery
Essay written by: wytch
Sigmund Freud once argued that "our species has a volcanic potential to erupt in aggression . . . [and] that we harbour not only positive survival instincts but also a self-destructive 'death instinct', which we usually displace towards others in aggression" (Myers 666). Timothy Findley, born in 1930 in Toronto, Canada, explores our human predilection towards violence in his third novel, The Wars. It is human brutality that initiates the horrors of World War I, the war that takes place in this narrative. Findley dedicated this novel to the memory of his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley, who 'died at home of injuries inflicted in the First World War" (Cude 75) and may have propelled him to feel so strongly about "what people really do to one another" (Inside Memory 19). Findley feels a great fondness for animals, and this affection surfaces faithfully in many of his literary works. The Wars is a novel wrought with imagery, and the most ofte...