As they pass the time, they begin to see the cycles of action and inaction as seemingly interminable, thinking that no matter what they do, the war will go on in a pattern of alternating calm and chaos. If you went—and left Osborne and Trotter and Raleigh and all those men up there to do your work—could you ever look a man straight in the face again—in all your life! She doesn't know that if I went up those steps into the front line—without being doped up with whiskey—I'd go mad with fright. This passage is significant because it speaks to the play's thematic concern with repression, revealing how soldiers use gallows humor to remain in high spirits when faced with the grim reality of war. Later that afternoon, the Colonel tells Stanhope that the higher-ups have decided to stage a raid on the German trenches before the attack on the 21st.

The play opens in a dugout close dugout A shelter for soldiers in the trenches, made by digging a hole in the ground and covering it with a roof.Osborne detects Raleigh's idolization of Stanhope and gently cautions him that life on the front lines has a habit of changing men. STANHOPE: There’s no need to—you see, this company’s a lot better than A and B Companies on either side of us.

When Raleigh leaves, Stanhope asks Osborne to read the letter, only to discover that the boy has said only positive things about him. By the end of dinner, only Stanhope and Osborne remain in the dugout, and Stanhope is exceedingly drunk.

Eventually, the fourth officer of Stanhope’s infantry, Hibbert, enters and claims that he doesn’t know if he can eat because of his neuralgia. The difficulty Osborne has in articulating the statement is significant, as it speaks to how Osborne would not like to undermine Stanhope's authority by spreading doubt about his mental condition, while he nonetheless wants the bright-eyed Raleigh not to grow disillusioned. In Waiting for Godot, Estragon and Vladimir wait for a man named Godot, but can’t remember why, exactly, they are doing so; nor do they know what will happen when Godot arrives. In fact, their responses to fear can be broken into three categories: acceptance, denial, and evasion.

Perhaps the most challenging thing the soldiers in Journey’s End face isn’t violence itself, but the threat of violence. Stanhope rebukes him, clarifying that he isn't the only one who cares that Osborne died, and that he drinks not to celebrate but to cope.As a result of this assassination, many European and Asian countries were swept up in a war that escalated quickly due to past years of international tensions and political allegiances.