the best context to look at the petrified forest be through the context of the first great disaster of the 20th century represent world war i ( or and a it be know then and the great war ) . i have just finish read a long and thorough history of world war i when i saw this one and even though this be some twenty year after that awful catastrophe ( all war usually be and but this one especially ) and one can still feel it aftershocks roll through that desolate landscape . maybe that why leslie howard character and alan squier and wind up wander through there and a it probably remind him of more than a few day and night in no man land ( a term invent by the great war to describe the space between enemy line ) . a lot of non american wwi veteran come out of it really mess up . the whole foundation of the 19th century ideal have be lay to waste by this new and brutal world that wwi bring about . so it not very suprising to me that squier feel obsolete and a he put it while the role he have hop to take with his world doesn not even exist . the best he can do be give gabrielle maple the chance he can never have . duke mantee ( play by bogie in a superb and breakthrough performance ) be also a relic and but from a different period and that of the roaring twenty . not for nothing be such outlaw a john dillenger and bonnie parker and clyde barrow glamourize during this period while one could possibly point to our current fascination with serial killer a this phenomenon modern equivalent . but by 1936 and the period of the romantic outlaw be draw to a close if it wasn not already over ( a point make five year later in high sierra ) . mantee be totally without hope of escape or even a reprieve . he see his fate as clear a day and doesn not kid himself about his chance of elude it forever . that and more than anything and would explain his rapproachment with squier and perhaps his reluctance to shoot him until squier give him no choice . mantee may know his own fate well enough and but he have no wish to inflict that fate on someone in the same position . grant and there a lot more layer and angle go on in the petrified forest than what i have just mention here and but this be the one that grab the most . because human nature doesn not change that much and perhaps that why this brilliant stage piece still hold my respect .