Long Long Way (Barry) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. Gretta’s father, Mr. Lawlor, tells Willie, "I don’t care what a man thinks as long as he knows his own mind," (p. 90) and he is also the character who talks about "cuckoo thoughts," as quoted in the introduction above. Does Willie come to know his own mind in the course of this story? What is it that he comes to know? Is it a matter of knowing what his political opinions are or something more?
     
2. Willie enlists because he isn’t tall enough to become a policeman, and other characters reveal their motivations for joining the war to be just as personal: poverty, family circumstances, a wife’s burned hand. Does this mean that these young soldiers are not affected by the larger issues of the war or by the question of home rule for Ireland? How do they come to terms with these larger political questions? How do personal motivations interact with political beliefs for these young men?
     
3. Willie’s father is loyal to England, and as a teenager Willie has no reason to question his father’s viewpoint. But as he begins to see more of the world and its politics, he must struggle to make sense of ambiguity and conflicting emotions. Barry writes, "The Parliament in London had said there would be Home Rule for Ireland at the end of the war; therefore, said John Redmond, Ireland was for the first time in seven hundred years in effect a country. So she could go to war as a nation at last—nearly—in the sure and solemnly given promise of self-rule. The British would keep their promise and Ireland must shed her blood generously" (p. 14). How does Barry represent the complexities of this historical struggle through his characters? Are they naïve? Are they exploited by political forces beyond their understanding?
     
4. Barry’s descriptions of life in the trenches are detailed and vivid. He writes, "When they came into their trench he felt small enough. The biggest thing there was the roaring of Death and the smallest thing was a man" (p. 24). Willie spends most of the war in these trenches, where one can’t see out, can’t see the enemy, has little or no idea of what is happening, and has only one’s immediate neighbors for comfort or sources of information. Is this a useful metaphor for war itself? How does Willie’s experience in these trenches influence his developing ideas about the war, the enemy, nationalism, and his own life?
     
5. The larger issues in this novel are all based in history: The Royal Dublin Fusiliers are real, and the story of Ireland’s role in World War I, and of the war’s influence on Ireland’s struggle for Home Rule, is true. How does Barry represent these historical events through his characters’ thoughts and emotions? Is this an effective way of revealing deeper truths about historical events? Do the personal struggles of these characters add to an understanding of what happened in Ireland at the beginning of the twentieth century?
     
6. Willie and his father are different in many ways, as they come to hold very different beliefs about the war and about Ireland. In what ways are they the same?
     
7.  One of the most powerful passages in the novel describes Willie’s first encounter with mustard gas and its horrible effects. Part of what makes it so fearful is the fact that the soldiers have no idea what it is or what it will do to them. And after they learn what it is, they consider it a sign that the Germans do not respect the rules of war. "Now they knew it was a filthy gas sent over by the filthy Boche to work perdition on them, a thing forbidden, it was said, by the articles of war. No general, no soldier could be proud of this work; no human person could take the joy of succeeding from these tortured deaths" (p. 51). Why would one form of killing be considered more respectable than another? Why is this form of attack considered less "human" than direct combat? Would it be seen in the same way today?
     
8. Why does Jesse Kirwan want to talk to Willie before he dies? What is the significance of this character in this story? What does he know that Willie does not know, and what does Willie learn from him? What meaning does Kirwan’s execution have, both to Willie personally and to the Irish army?
     
9. In what ways are women important in this story? How do Gretta and his sisters influence Willie? What do they represent to him? How does the war affect the roles of men and women in Irish society?
     
10. As the war approaches its end, Willie wonders how to go on in life when so many of his cherished ideals have been undermined. "How could a fella go out and fight for his country when his country would dissolve behind him like sugar in the rain?....How could a fella like Willie hold England and Ireland equally in his heart, like his father before him, like his father’s father, and his father’s father’s father, when both now would call him a traitor, though his heart was clear and pure, as pure as a heart can be after three years of slaughter?" (p. 282). What kinds of answers might Willie’s story suggest to these questions? Does the novel resolve any of the ambiguity it raises in the conflict between the personal and the political? What kind of meaning seems important to Barry in the face of the bleak suffering of this story?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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