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Chapter 15
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Long Long Way, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Naivety, and Growing Up
The Horrors of War
Family, Camaraderie, and Love
Political Conflict and Divided Loyalties
Resilience and Shared Humanity
Summary
Analysis
Willie turns 20 years old, and at the beginning of 1917, his company returns to a quiet part of the front lines. The number of Irishmen in the company has dwindled severely, and the newest soldiers are all English, including the platoon’s new leader, Biggs. Willie befriends a young soldier from London named Timmy Weekes, who jokes that he and his six siblings are nicknamed the days of the Weekes. Timmy has brought several books with him, and his copies of Dostoevsky and Walt Whitman quickly become favorites of all the soldiers. Willie is grateful to be able to escape into a book for a few hours at a time during the harsh, demoralizing winter.
The scarcity of Irishmen in Willie’s company reflects the steep casualties that the Irish regiments in the British Army have suffered since the beginning of the war. While Willie’s fallen comrades cannot be replaced, Willie is glad to meet a new soldier whose company he enjoys. Meanwhile, all the men take comfort in reading to escape their current hardship, which demonstrates the power that words have to help the soldiers through difficult times.
Themes
When spring comes, Willie receives two letters. The first is a short, adoring message from Dolly, and the second is a postcard of a beach in Sligo from Annie. Willie almost cries to see the ordinary, peaceful scene depicted in the postcard, and he reads his sisters’ writing over and over again. He still doesn’t receive anything from Gretta.
Willie’s relationship with his sisters is precious to him, and his love for them is magnified by how much he misses his home and family. He clings to their letters for comfort and for reminders of what normal, everyday life is like outside of war.
Themes
Willie’s company learns that their next orders are to take a small village called Wytschaete from the Germans. Before they leave for the attack, Father Buckley offers confession for the soldiers. When it’s Willie’s turn to see the priest, Willie confesses that he slept with a sex worker in Amiens. He also confides in Father Buckley that his father is angry with him, that he pities the rebels killed in Ireland, and that he doesn’t know what he’s fighting for anymore.
Willie is troubled by the tension between himself and his father. He doesn’t want his family relationships to be strained, yet he also can’t relinquish the feelings that offended his father in the first place. Furthermore, Willie has started to feel that war is nonsensical and pointless, which makes him feel purposeless and confuses him about his duty as a soldier.
Themes
Father Buckley explains that Willie Redmond, a Member of Parliament and brother of John Redmond, believes Irishmen can fight for Home Rule and their country’s unity by fighting in this war. In response, Willie says he doubts his father would like Redmond’s ideas. Father Buckley asks Willie what he thinks, assuring him that he can have a different opinion from his father, but Willie is confused. He’s never diverged from his father’s way of thinking before. Father Buckley kindly blesses Willie, gives him his penance, and wishes him good luck.
Willie still prioritizes his father’s opinions rather than deciding for himself what he believes. In this way, Willie continues to display some childhood naivety. Changing his way of thinking to be more independent is difficult for Willie. Still, Father Buckley encourages Willie to think for himself—like Mr. Lawlor also did in the novel’s beginning—and offers Willie a nationalist perspective on the war and an Irishman’s role in it.
Themes
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