Themes and Symbolism
The novel espouses McDougall's thesis that although the Canadians inhabit a brutal and unforgiving world, they are not intrinsically immoral. War makes men act brutally and inhumanely, but at their root is an essential goodness that even war cannot subsume completely. As Warren Cariou shows in his afterword to the New Canadian Library edition of Execution, the novel is not a realist novel, but an existential meditation on the ethics of war. Like Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny or Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, both of which were key models for McDougall, Execution is a novel that combines visceral depictions of combat with philosophical questions about the blurred boundaries between good and evil. Jones is considered to be a scapegoat.
Other important themes include the abuse of military power, especially in one scene involving Allied generals planning an attack against the Germans that is bound to fail, and the isolation and alienation of front-line soldiers from mainstream society.
The second execution scene establishes Jonesy as a Christ-like figure, and his death is a symbolic atonement for the Canadians' "sin" of murdering the two Italians.
Read more about this topic: Execution (novel)
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