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Chapter 17
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
Word spreads that Willie Redmond, who was fighting in the war, has died. Father Buckley grieves openly about the news, and one day, Willie offers the priest his condolences. Father Buckley wishes that Willie Redmond could have seen northern and southern Irishmen celebrating victory together at Wytschaete.
Father Buckley earnestly wants Ireland to be unified and free from hostility between nationalists and unionists. Although Willie isn’t a supporter of Redmond like Father Buckley is, he still relates to the priest’s grief. Willie consoles Father Buckley because he cares about and feels close to the kind priest.
Themes
In August 1917, rains pour down in Ypres, making soldiers miserable. After days of being in reserve, Willie’s company marches toward the front lines for an attack on Langemarck. Along the way, bombs fall around them, and dismembered body parts of dead soldiers and horses litter the muddy roads. Willie tries not to think about such gruesome sights. He can’t imagine trying to describe what war is like to Dolly.
Willie is no longer naïve about war. The suffering he endures and the horrific scenes of death he encounters both fully disillusion him as to the horrors of war. However, Dolly is still young, innocent, and ignorant of many of the world’s evils. Out of love for his sister, Willie wishes to protect her from such terrible realities.
Themes
During the march, Willie jokes with Timmy Weekes that Dostoevsky would be frightened by their current circumstances. Then Willie, Timmy, and Joe Kielty wonder if battles portrayed in novels are like real battles. Willie says they must be different, because there are victors in stories, whereas so many men die in real-life war that nobody seems to win. Willie’s happiness drains away, and his head throbs.
At first, discussing novels with his friends cheers Willie up, as stories help distract him from his misery. However, understanding that the dark reality of war is nothing like glorified depictions of battles in literature causes Willie to despair. He’s filled with familiar, aching grief and hopelessness as he thinks of all the death he has witnessed.
Themes
Willie’s company arrives at a series of ditches. For two days, the men work to improve the trenches in the pouring rain without fresh water or food rations. While bullets fly overhead and bombshells explode, Willie’s despair grows. On the third day, men of the 16th and 36th Divisions once more lead an attack. The soldiers advance across a field so muddy that it’s a struggle to move forward. A great number of soldiers fall, dead or wounded. Willie, Christy Moran, Joe Kielty, and Timmy Weekes successfully reach the allotted line and stop. A second wave of soldiers arrives behind them to push on to Langemarck, but countless German troops are waiting to oppose them.
Trench warfare continues to take heavy physical and emotional tolls on the Irish soldiers. The men suffer under the constant threat of danger in miserable conditions, and the eventual attack only brings more fear, pain, and death.
Themes
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Suddenly, Willie sees Father Buckley burying a corpse out in the open. Willie calls out to the priest, but Christy Moran tells him to shut up. The soldiers who led the attack are officially relieved, and Willie and his fellow soldiers turn back the way they came. By the following day, casualties have risen terribly high, and yet the battalions’ orders are to keep up the attack. One soldier informs Willie that Father Buckley died when he was hit with shrapnel in the aid post.
Willie loses yet another person he grew to care deeply about in the war. The death of the compassionate Father Buckley, who served as a mentor figure for Willie, burdens Willie with even more grief, loneliness, and sorrow. Meanwhile, the army’s push to continue the attack despite the steep cost exemplifies the absurdity of war, which creates seemingly endless and senseless violence.
Themes
After the attack, Major Stokes visits the soldiers in the trenches near Langemarck. He approaches Willie in particular to make sure there are no “hard feelings” between them. Surprised, Willie answers no. Major Stokes thanks Willie for his forgiveness, although Willie can’t tell if he’s being sincere or not.
Although it’s unclear what Major Stokes’s intentions are, his personal apology to Willie suggests that he might regret mistreating Willie in the past and is trying to make amends for his offensive behavior against Irishmen, if only to assuage his own conscience.
Themes
For the next 15 days, Willie’s company is left to the pouring rain and muddy trenches. The soldiers feel forgotten and abandoned by their own officers. They receive no food or water rations. Finally, Christy Moran tells Willie that he can go home on furlough. Willie rejoices gratefully. Before he leaves, Christy gives him his own medal, insisting that Willie has earned it. Christy hopes the medal, which is decorated with a harp and a crown, will help keep Willie safe.
By giving Willie his own medal, Christy shows how much he cares about Willie. The medal is thus a sign of friendship between the two men. Notably, the medal—which bears a harp to represent Ireland and a crown to represent England—also symbolizes Irish soldiers’ connection to both Ireland and England.
Themes
