ALLW Chapter Summaries: Volume One

A Long Long Way: detailed chapter summaries

VOLUME ONE

Chapter One 

Time: 1896-1913
Location: Dublin (including a number of references to specific locations within Dublin and the Irish countryside) 

Characters: William 'Willie' Dunne
                       Willie's mother
                       Willie's father (James Patrick Dunne)
                       Gretta Lawler
                       Mr Lawler 

Plot

- Introduction to Willie Dunne. Discussion of birth and naming. 
- Introduction to Willie's mother. Early life. 
- External perpective of WIlliam's generation. References extent of the even to present Wilie as      unalone in situation, as well as clarity of the men's predetermined fate and helplessness. 
- Childhood of Willie (age 6/7). Recount of King's visit to Ireland and the inspection of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. First idolisation of father, superior atop the horse. 
- Childhood of Willie. Had a close relationship with his mother, and a strained one with his father. A sense of inadequacy in regards to his height.
- Recount of sister's birth (age 12) which caused mother's death in childbirth. 
- Introduction to Gretta, including their meeting and the events between Willie's father and Mr Lawler. 
- Initiation of Willie and Gretta's secret relationship (age 17 and 15 respectively). 
- WIllie explains his motivation for going to war, despite Gretta's disapproval

Themes

- love (parental, romantic, new)
- loss (death, pain, grief)  
- war (futility of, impact of, expectation of) 

Key Quotations 

- "He was born in the dying days" 
- "millions...piled up in great ruined heaps...a scrapheap of souls."
- "Like a scrap, llke a deatherless pigeon" 
- "His mother was like a dark song that made him cry."
- "Willie cursed his very bones, his very muscles, his very heart and soul." 
- "Her eyes had the green of the writing on a tram ticket." 
- "their own thoughts are tossed out and cuckoo thoughts put in instead."
- "he must play his part...he would not be remorseful but content...he had followed his own mind." 

Chapter Two 

Time: December 1914 - Spring 1915
Location: Dublin, Fermoy training camp, France

Characters: William 'Willie' Dunne
                      Dolly., Annie, Maud Dunne 
                      Captain Pasley
                      Sergeant-Major Christy Moran 
                      Private Williams
                      Joe Clancy

Plot

- Willie considers the politcal status of Ireland and offers some brief insight into the issue of Home Rule.
- Willie enlists, to his family's sadness, and the almost maternal sensitivity between Dolly and Willie is revealed. 
- Willie writes to home from…