In his novel The Wars, Timothy Findley deconstructs the concept of friend and enemy. Jacques Derrida, the founder of deconstruction, said: “Deconstruction takes place, it is an event which does not await the deliberation, the consciousness or the organization of a subject, nor even of modernity. It deconstructs itself. It can be deconstructed. (Map, 781). Jacques Derrida believed that deconstruction happens on its own and therefore there is no need to consciously deconstruct a text, as it is an unconscious process on which there is no need to deliberate. In the text The Wars, Findley assumes that the enemy is the closest friend. Oxford Dictionaries defines the term "enemy" as a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something. In war, the notion of friend and foe is certainly obvious; soldiers are deployed from around the world to fight alongside their country and their allies, these being their “friends”, to ultimately defeat the “enemy”. In the text, the protagonist, Robert Ross, and his men are ordered by Captain Leather to set up weapons posts near the German lines. While settling in, Robert Ross and his men are unmasked by the Germans, and after fortunately surviving a gas attack, Robert Ross and his men encounter a German sniper sent to surveil and kill them, who ends up by risking his own life to free them. them all. “He could have killed them all. That was surely his intention. But he had given in. Why” (Findley, 131)? Robert Ross realizes that the German soldier had a rifle at his side the whole time, which he could have used to kill them all, but he didn't. As an enemy of Ross and his men, this young German soldier should have, being hostile to these soldiers, shot them down as he pleased...... middle of paper ...... attacks and fires flamethrowers. The Germans were implacably hostile to the British and Canadian soldiers, saving no lives but eliminating many. The Germans are truly the enemies of these soldiers; however, in this case they are definitely not acting like friends, which ultimately disagrees with Timothy Findley's hypothesis that the enemy is his closest friends. The saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is truly justified in the text The Wars. For his "enemy" will not harm him, for no trust is placed in an enemy, but his friend will, for as a friend one invests much trust in another and by breaking that trust, we are hurt more than anything. Timothy Findley deconstructs the concept of friend and foe in his novel The Wars, illustrating that the enemy will turn out to be the closest friend..