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Chapter 3
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 has now been away from home for several months. He guesses that Dublin has not changed much in his absence. He’s also upset that Gretta hasn’t written to him, even though he has sent her several letters. Before he left Ireland, Willie asked Gretta to marry him. She was not embarrassed to answer with a straightforward no. Now, Willie frequently misses Gretta and thinks about how beautiful she is. He writes her a letter from Flanders in April 1915 to tell her that he loves her. He worries that Gretta and Captain Pasley—who has to read all his soldiers’ mail as a precaution—will think he’s stupid.
Being away at war makes Willie’s love for Gretta feel stronger and more precious to him. Thinking about Gretta brings Willie happiness and also reminds him of home. His nervous awkwardness about declaring his love underscores that Willie is young, shy, self-conscious, and inexperienced. Compared to Willie, Gretta appears blunt, less sentimental, and more self-assured, although she is younger than him.
Themes
Willie’s company is billeted in the reserve lines near St. Julian. One day, Willie, Clancy, Williams, O’Hara, and Captain Pasley go swimming in the nearby river. The young men strip off their uniforms and dive into the water joyfully, no longer divided by rank. They lie in the grass underneath willow trees, enjoying this moment of calm even though they can still hear the noise of bombs and airplanes overhead. Captain Pasley reminisces about his family’s farm in Wicklow and the work on the fields that needs to be done. The other men like to hear the captain talk about his home.
In this idyllic scene, Willie and his comrades are not soldiers but simply young men instead. As equals and friends, they enjoy a temporary period of peace and safety. Being in each other’s company brings them happiness. The war has created an opportunity for these men to form close relationships with one another, and their strong bonds of camaraderie help keep their spirits high.
Themes
Soon, Willie’s company occupies a trench originally dug by French soldiers. Sometimes, Willie forgets what day it is, what his own name is, and why he’s in the trenches at all. One day, Christy Moran sees a strange yellow cloud moving along the grass. He tells the soldiers to be ready to fire at advancing enemies. The cousins Joe McNulty and Joe Kielty man the machine-gun. However, the battlefield remains so quiet that Captain Pasley orders the men to stop firing. All the Irish soldiers stare into the approaching yellow smoke in confusion, unsure of what to do.
The senseless nature of the war makes Willie lose sight of his personal identity and purpose, as if the war is leeching away meaning from his life. The yellow fog the soldiers face is commonly known as mustard gas, a chemical weapon first used in World War I by the German army. Since they’ve never encountered mustard gas before, the Irish soldiers don’t recognize its toxicity and the danger they’re in.
Themes
The yellow fog descends into the trench where Algerian soldiers are stationed to the right of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Suddenly, the Algerian soldiers begin yelling and fleeing from the trenches. The Irishmen grow terrified of the fog as more and more men start to scream. When the foul-smelling fog reaches Willie’s company, Joe McNulty falls to the ground, clutching his throat. Then everyone, including Willie, climbs out of the trench and runs. However, Captain Pasley chooses to stay behind.
The deadly mustard gas is perhaps even more terrifying to the members of the British Army than enemy soldiers because it’s unfamiliar and inhuman. Willie and his comrades are under attack from a new, unimaginable horror of war. As confusion transforms into terror, the instinctual desire to flee from danger overtakes nearly all the men. Only Captain Pasley prioritizes duty over safety.
Themes
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Outside the trenches is chaos. Some soldiers fall, screaming, to their knees, while others run as fast as they can to escape the smoke. For each man, his own survival is the only concern. Bravery and virtue are irrelevant to the soldiers’ need to flee “that long, long monster with yellow skin.” Some officers try to stop the men from running, but their efforts are unsuccessful. When the danger seems to have passed, Willie and many other men collapse from exhaustion.
The personification of the mustard gas as a living monster vividly illustrates how horrifying this form of warfare is. There’s no honor or glory in this battle—only chaos, pain, fear, and death. The narrative emphasizes that the soldiers who flee aren’t weak or cowardly. Instead, the idea that the men should hold their positions seems absurd.
Themes
Willie awakes to a world that has turned yellow. He realizes he’s alone, and he wants his comrades “the way a baby wants its home.” In the trenches, Willie finds the dead bodies of Williams, Clancy, and Joe McNulty. Worst of all, Willie finds Captain Pasley’s corpse, and he’s overwhelmed by sorrow, disgust, and anger. Father Buckley, the company padre who has been attending to the dead, joins Willie at Captain Pasley’s side. The priest and Willie speak to each other, but their grief weighs on them so heavily that they can hardly understand the world or each other.
Willie’s comrades have become like a second family to him, and he feels unsafe and lonely without them. That Willie cares so much for his fellow soldiers makes it all the more devastating that he must now mourn their deaths. The aftermath of the gas attack showcases that war causes soldiers not only physical pain but also great mental and emotional pain, especially in the form of grief.
Themes
After the gas attack, Willie can’t stop thinking that he’s only 18 years old. Christy Moran calls Captain Pasley a fool for refusing to run. In response, Willie gets angry because he views the captain’s choice to not leave his post “a sacred matter.” Later, the surviving soldiers hold a ceremony for more than 500 dead men. Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish Irishmen are honored and buried together.
Willie is still young, but the suffering he’s already endured in the war has caused him to lose his childhood innocence. He and Christy grieve Captain Pasley’s death differently, but both men feel the loss of their beloved captain severely. The burial of so many soldiers—all of different faiths—represents a striking moment of unity, but it also emphasizes that war takes countless lives indiscriminately, and that the living soldiers don’t have time to mourn the dead individually.
Themes
Over the course of the summer, the battalion is reinforced with new recruits from Ireland. Fleetingly, Willie thinks of the fresh soldiers from home as “King George’s lambs.” The following months are quiet, although Willie’s company hears tales of hundreds of Irish soldiers’ deaths in the Dardanelles. Christy Moran observes that bad news now travels among Irishmen as quickly as good songs used to. He adds that the British army comprises so many Irishmen that it should be called the Irish-British army.
For the first time, Willie conceives of soldiers as lambs sent to slaughter, which indicates that he’s beginning to view the war as futile butchery. Moreover, Willie seems particularly bitter that Irish soldiers are dying for the King of England, suggesting that he’s starting to think differently about Irish soldiers’ duty and loyalty to Britian. At the same time, Christy feels that the British Army is neglecting—if not exploiting—its Irish members.
Themes
A fierce winter arrives, snow covers the land, and Willie’s platoon marches through the countryside. Now 19 years old, Willie thinks about the builders who constructed the roads and admires their work. As the soldiers march, they and their new captain—Captain Sheridan—sing. Willie is comforted by the songs even more than he is by food, but sometimes singing makes him cough. Willie starts to worry that something has gone wrong inside him. He constantly sees a phantom of Captain Pasley in his peripheral vision, and he can’t get warm. Sometimes, he wants to cry out, but he doesn’t.
Willie draws comfort, joy, and strength from singing. In fact, it heals and enlivens him in a way that actual nourishment can’t. Willie’s comrades are similarly bolstered by song, showing that they all share a common faith in music to help get them through difficult times. In this way, the soldiers display great resilience. Yet the war has taken a definite toll on them. Emotionally traumatized, Willie feels as though his grief is a growing sickness inside him.
Themes
