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Character analysis

Major Glendinning

in How Many Miles to Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston

Major Glendinning is the commanding officer of the British Army unit in Jennifer Johnston's How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974). He represents institutional authority and military power rooted in class. Rather than being a fully developed character, he acts more like a structural force — the embodiment of the officer class — and his actions propel the novel toward its tragic climax.

Glendinning is cold, exacting, and strictly adheres to rules. He shows little interest in the men under his command as individuals; his focus is on rank, order, and maintaining the social hierarchies that the war is supposedly meant to defend. When Jerry Crowe goes AWOL to look for his missing father, Glendinning quickly moves to have him court-martialed and sentenced to death by firing squad. He further amplifies the cruelty by ordering Alec Moore — Jerry's closest friend and a fellow officer — to execute him personally, a command that serves as both punishment and a test of Alec's loyalty to the system over his friend.

Glendinning's character arc is largely static: he starts and finishes as an instrument of power. Yet his rigidity highlights the novel's main argument — that class and military hierarchy work together to undermine genuine human connections. His disdain for the friendship between the Anglo-Irish officer Alec and the working-class Jerry is evident in every interaction, making him the novel's most potent symbol of the social order that sends young men to their deaths and then punishes them for trying to maintain their humanity.

About this character

Form
Novella
Author
Jennifer Johnston
First published
1974

The person01–03

01·Who they are

Who is Major Glendinning?

Major Glendinning commands the British Army unit to which Alec Moore is attached on the Western Front in Jennifer Johnston's How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974). He is not softened by a personal history or a private life; Johnston keeps him deliberately opaque, a figure of pure function. What the reader sees is entirely institutional: a man whose identity has been absorbed so completely by rank and protocol that nothing human seems to remain beneath the uniform. His speech is clipped and purposeful, his manner cold, and his judgements delivered without visible deliberation. He embodies the military-social order — and Johnston uses that very flatness as a form of critique.

02·Arc & motivation

What is Major Glendinning's arc and motivation?

Glendinning's arc is static, and that stasis serves a purpose. He begins the narrative as an enforcer of hierarchy and remains unchanged by the carnage surrounding him or by any of the individual stories that unfold within his command. His motivation is not cruelty for its own sake but a chilling belief in the system. He maintains rank, order, and the social distinctions the war purports to defend because he cannot conceive of their absence. When Jerry Crowe goes absent without leave to search for his missing father, Glendinning does not pause to interrogate the human circumstances; desertion is desertion, insubordination is insubordination, and the machinery must be fed. His rigidity is seen as professional virtue.

03·Key moments

What are Major Glendinning's key moments?

The court-martial and sentencing of Jerry Crowe is Glendinning's defining action in the text. Jerry's motivation — a son looking for his father in the chaos of the Front — is irrelevant to Glendinning. The military code supersedes private grief, and he moves swiftly and without apparent conflict to have Jerry condemned to death. This moment strips bare the novel's central argument: institutional logic and human logic are incompatible, and the institution always prevails.

More revealing still is the order Glendinning issues to Alec: he must personally carry out Jerry's execution. This is not simply an administrative convenience. The command acts as a test and a punishment simultaneously — a demand that Alec demonstrate his loyalty to the officer class over his loyalty to his friend. Glendinning's awareness that the two men are close makes the order feel deliberate. He is forcing Alec to choose the system and expects compliance. That Alec ultimately complies, in his own tortured way, confirms the reach of Glendinning's authority even over the most resistant conscience.

The cast04–05

04·Relationships

What are Major Glendinning's most important relationships?

With Alec Moore, Glendinning occupies the position of coercive authority to reluctant subordinate. Alec has always been ambivalent about his officer status — his friendship with Jerry is a quiet act of class transgression — and Glendinning seems to register this ambivalence with contempt. By ordering Alec to execute Jerry, he weaponises the very class hierarchy Alec distrusts, ensuring that Alec cannot escape it. This relationship offers Johnston one of the novel's sharpest ironies: the system destroys Alec most completely precisely because he was always half-resistant to it.

With Jerry Crowe, there is no meaningful relationship — only the relation of power to object. Jerry's working-class origins, his rank, and his emotional motivations register with Glendinning only as categories to be processed. The absence of any direct engagement between them underscores Johnston's point: to Glendinning's world, Jerry is a type, not a person.

With Captain Barry and Bennett, Glendinning operates as the apex of a diffuse hierarchy. These figures transmit and normalise his authority downward, demonstrating that institutional power does not depend on any single personality but on a structure that reproduces itself at every level.

05·Connected characters

How is Major Glendinning connected to the other characters?

Alec Moore

Glendinning is Alec's commanding officer and the agent of his ultimate moral destruction. He exploits Alec's officer status to force him to execute Jerry, weaponising the class hierarchy Alec has always been ambivalent about. Their relationship is one of coercive authority versus reluctant compliance.

Jerry Crowe

Jerry is the direct victim of Glendinning's institutional power. Glendinning has Jerry court-martialled for desertion and condemned to death, treating his deeply human motivation — searching for his father — as irrelevant insubordination. Jerry's fate is entirely in Glendinning's hands.

Captain Barry

Captain Barry operates within the same chain of command as Glendinning and serves as a secondary conduit of military authority. Glendinning's orders filter through figures like Barry, reinforcing how institutional power is diffused and normalised across the officer class.

Bennett

Bennett represents the rank-and-file layer of the military structure over which Glendinning presides. Their relationship underscores the rigid hierarchy Glendinning enforces, with enlisted men treated as interchangeable instruments rather than individuals.

Study06–07

06·Questions

Questions readers ask about Major Glendinning

What does Major Glendinning order Alec Moore to do, and why is it so significant?

Glendinning orders Alec to personally carry out Jerry Crowe's execution by firing squad. The command is significant because Glendinning is fully aware that the two men are close friends, making the order a test of loyalty to the officer class and a punishment for Alec's class-transgressing friendship. It forces Alec to choose the military system over his own conscience, and the system ultimately prevails.

Why does Major Glendinning have Jerry Crowe court-martialled and sentenced to death?

Glendinning has Jerry court-martialled for going AWOL; Jerry left his post to search for his missing father behind the lines. To Glendinning, human motivation is entirely irrelevant; desertion is desertion, and military code supersedes private grief. His swift, untroubled condemnation of Jerry demonstrates that institutional logic and human logic are, in Johnston's framing, fundamentally incompatible.

Is Major Glendinning the villain of How Many Miles to Babylon?

Glendinning functions as the novel's chief antagonist, but Johnston resists giving him a villain's psychology. He acts not out of personal malice but out of complete belief in military hierarchy and social order. Johnston keeps him opaque and static — a structural force rather than a rounded individual — using his flatness as a critique of institutional power rather than of any single bad actor.

What is the relationship between Major Glendinning and Alec Moore?

Glendinning is Alec's commanding officer and ultimately the agent of his moral destruction. Alec has always been ambivalent about his officer status, and Glendinning seems to register that ambivalence with contempt. By ordering Alec to execute Jerry, he weaponises the class hierarchy Alec distrusts, ensuring Alec cannot escape the system he was always half-resistant to. Their relationship is defined by coercive authority on one side and reluctant, agonised compliance on the other.

Does Major Glendinning change or develop over the course of the novella?

Glendinning's arc is entirely static; he begins and ends as an enforcer of military and class hierarchy, unmoved by the carnage or the individual human stories around him. Johnston uses this deliberate unchanging quality as a structural argument: institutional power does not depend on personality or conscience and cannot be softened by experience. His rigidity, within his own worldview, is indistinguishable from professional virtue.

How does Glendinning treat Jerry Crowe compared to how he treats Alec Moore?

Glendinning treats Jerry purely as a category to be processed — a working-class soldier who has committed insubordination — with no direct personal engagement whatsoever. Alec, as a fellow officer, is addressed and commanded but ultimately coerced rather than respected. The contrast underscores Johnston's argument that Glendinning's world recognises types and ranks, never individuals, with class determining how much of even that minimal recognition a person receives.

What does Major Glendinning represent thematically in the novella?

Glendinning represents the intersection of military authority and class hierarchy — the social order that the First World War was supposedly fought to defend. Johnston denies him interiority to suggest that the system he embodies is self-perpetuating and impersonal. His disdain for the friendship between the Anglo-Irish officer Alec and the working-class Jerry makes him the novel's most concentrated symbol of the forces that send young men to their deaths and then punish them for retaining their humanity.

How does Major Glendinning's relationship with Captain Barry and Bennett reflect his role in the novel?

Glendinning's orders filter downward through figures like Captain Barry and Bennett, demonstrating that institutional power does not reside in any single personality but reproduces itself across every level of the hierarchy. Barry transmits and normalises his authority among the officer class, while Bennett represents the enlisted ranks treated as interchangeable instruments. Together, they show that Glendinning's influence is systemic, not personal — which is precisely Johnston's point.

07·Essay angles

Use this in your essay

Tool · Essay angles

  • Class as weapon

    Analyse how Glendinning's order to Alec functions not merely as military command but as a deliberate reassertion of class allegiance. How does Johnston use this moment to argue that the class system and the war machine are inseparable?

  • The static antagonist

    Glendinning undergoes no development. Explore what Johnston gains by making her central authority figure entirely unchanged by the events of the novel — what does static characterisation suggest about the nature of institutional power?

  • Absence of interiority

    Johnston denies Glendinning an inner life. Discuss how this narrative choice shapes the reader's understanding of authority, and compare it to the deeply introspective characterisation of Alec.

  • Institutional logic vs. human connection

    Using Glendinning as a focal point, argue that the novel presents the military hierarchy as structurally incompatible with friendship, grief, and individual conscience.

  • The execution order as dramatic climax

    Examine the execution sequence as the moment where Glendinning's influence is most fully realised. How does Johnston use this scene to bring the novel's class critique to its tragic conclusion?

How Many Miles to Babylon?

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