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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Old God’s Time, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory
Grief and Ghosts
Abuse of Institutional Power
Personal Trauma vs. Collective Trauma
Summary
Analysis
The next day, Tom decides that he’ll comply with Fleming’s request to provide a blood sample. As he makes his way to the station, he thinks of how he’ll disappoint the forensics team either way: a positive match would still be ambiguous, and a negative match would leave them with nothing. His mind then wanders to his time in Malaya, where the Chinese people there were moved to villages to keep them away from Malayan rebels. Tom’s job was to climb into a tree and snipe anyone who appeared to be a rebel. Tom earned the nickname “Beady-Eye Kettle” for his accuracy. His reputation got him into the police when he went back to Ireland; he reflects on how killing “gave him his Irish life.”
Tom’s concern about disappointing the forensics team despite the stakes of his blood sample illustrates his compassionate nature—which serves as a stark contrast to the deeper backstory surrounding his time in the military, in which he was left to decide who looked like rebels and then kill them. The fact that this practice got him into the police is a damning illustration of how enacting institutional violence allowed Tom to enter another influential institution that the novel has shown also abused its power.
Themes
Tom arrives at the station, where he makes easy banter with the women working there. The tech who takes Tom’s blood tells him that he has nice blood; apparently, some people’s blood is murky. Walking home, Tom thinks of how murder charges used to result in the death penalty. He thinks of all the people he killed in Malay—57 in total—and knows that this makes him a murderer. He considers that the rebels he shot were drawn to the village by hunger, and he asks himself whether they couldn’t have been good souls. Suddenly, he’s accosted by Wilson, who had been trying to get him his attention.
Tom’s track record of murdering 57 Malayan people raises the question of what makes someone a murderer. Given the current context of the murder case, it also implicitly asks the question of whether the murder of a pedophilic priest is really worse than the murder of 57 people—even though only one of these acts was state-sanctioned.
Themes
Wilson wishes to talk to Tom about Byrne. He laments that so few priests are honest, but Tom says that priests like Byrne aren’t real priests. Wilson tells Tom that he almost entered the priesthood, but he was put off by it by the prison-like architecture of the church. Wilson tells Tom that 15 boys are willing to testify against Byrne, and since Byrne knows he’s doomed, he’s begun making allegations against Tom. Wilson asks Tom straight-out if he killed Matthews; he apologizes for the question, but he says that it’s bound to become a mess if he advances the investigation. Tom doesn’t answer him directly, but he insists that Wilson must advance the investigation no matter what. Wilson seems reluctant, and Tom thinks of winning his Medal of Valor for taking a bullet for a madman’s wife. Tom’s heroic act did not come out of bravery, but out of a lack of regard for his own life.
Tom’s insistence that Wilson advance the case no matter what—with the implication being that it doesn’t matter if it leads to Tom’s conviction—is juxtaposed with his memory of earning a Medal of Valor. His musing that he did not take a bullet to be a hero, but because he does not particularly care about himself, parallels his desire for the case to progress regardless of the consequences for him. Although Tom thinks little of himself for this, in some ways, his attitude highlights his bravery: his moral compass is strong enough that it doesn’t even occur to him to be afraid for his own wellbeing.
Themes
Wilson, who appears to be lost in thought, leaves. Tom shakes himself out of a reverie. In returning to the “real world,” Tom ponders what it means to be in the real world, and wonders where he begins, and the rest of the universe begins. He also wonders how others see him now that he’s old, and he thinks of how younger people are unknowingly passing by structures that were destroyed when Tom was young. As he walks back home, he accepts that the easiness of his first nine months of retirement are done and that his fate will soon come to collect him.
Tom’s wondering about his connection to the universe is a subtle callback to the sequence of the neutrinos moving through him in chapter 2. As the possibility of his arrest draws nearer, he contemplates the impact that he might leave on the world, as shown by the subtle parallel between him and long-destroyed buildings that those younger than Tom simply don’t remember. This raises the question of whether Tom will be remembered at all.
Themes
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