• Analyze how Alec's and Jerry's different backgrounds influence their identities and decisions throughout the novel.
• Examine the role of World War I as a backdrop that both reflects and intensifies the class tensions present in Irish society.
• Discuss how Johnston employs narrative structure — particularly Alec's reflective voice from his prison cell — to frame themes of inevitability, guilt, and complicity.
• Support your argument with specific textual evidence, including dialogue, imagery, and key plot moments.

Assessment focus

Argument development, textual analysis, thematic insight, and use of evidence.

• Analyze how Alec's and Jerry's differing backgrounds influence their identities and their friendship.
• Examine Alec's mother as a symbol of class rigidity and social control.
• Discuss how the backdrop of World War I acts as an extension — rather than a cause — of the social forces already influencing Ireland.
• Support your argument with specific textual evidence, such as dialogue, imagery, and narrative structure.

Support your argument with specific examples and analysis from the text.

• How Alec and Jerry's friendship either challenges or reinforces class boundaries
• The role of Alec's mother as a representation of social repression and control
• How the context of World War I serves as a parallel to — or an extension of — the class conflict at home
• The importance of the novel's framing narrative (Alec writing from his prison cell) and what it implies about agency, fate, and complicity