Rowena Ross

Rowena Ross is Robert Ross’s sister, Robert Ross being the main character of “The Wars.” Rowena suffers from a disease called hydrocephalus, a disease in which there is water resting on the sufferer’s brain. Sadly, the disease restricts Rowena to a wheel chair, greatly restricting her life in many ways. One of the very few things that brighten Rowena’s life is a group of rabbits she cares for in her family’s barn. One day, at the age of twenty five, tragedy strikes Rowena, when while playing with her rabbits she falls from her wheel chair and dies. Robert quickly blames the death on himself, reasoning that he should have watched over his disabled sister. The guilt caused by the death, finalizes the decision in Robert’s mind to join the army, and fight in the death fields of Europe. In this aspect, Rowena is essential to the plot of the novel, “The Wars”, by Timothy Findley.