The Pursuit of One's Dreams, Goals and Ideals

By: MacKenzie Cassin-Tennant

"A horse is the projection of people's dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence." -Pam Brown. In The Wars Timothy Findley demonstrates how Robert Ross has a deep desire to obtain a sense of forgiveness from the guilt that he suffers for his sister, Rowena's, death. However it seems that the more he tries to achieve this the farther away Robert's goal of amnesty becomes.

Robert's primary concern from the minute he hears the news is to agonize himself with guilt over his sister's death. In the beginning of the novel right after Rowena dies he automatically takes the blame upon himself "it wasn't Stuart's fault, it was Robert's fault" (15). Robert convinces himself that the death of Rowena was actually...