What are the motifs in Idiot's Delight by Robert E. Sherwood?

Patriotism is a recurrinh idea. Sherwood seems to be making the point in this play that, given extreme circumstances, almost anyone will become patriotic. The most obvious examples are Quillery and Dr. Waldersee. Early in Idiot's Delight, Quillery refuses to call himself a French-man. He identifies the French with pig farmers, as his father was, while he sees himself as belonging to a new breed of industrial workers. If he has any political affiliation at all, it is with Communist party leader Nikolai Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution. After the assault on Paris, however, Quillery identifies himself as a Frenchman. He seals his own doom by cursing the Italians for what they have done to his country, and he goes to his death shouting patriotic slogans. Dr. Waldersee falls into patriotism as a negative reaction to the war. He loses hope in saving the world from cancer, and, hopeless, he realizes that he is at heart a German citizen.