64 pages • 2 hours read
Ford Madox FordParade's End
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1928A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaBook 2, Part 1, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 2: “No More Parades”
Book 2, Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Christopher—now Captain Tietjens—is inside a military tent with some other soldiers and another Captain, McKechnie, whose name Christopher always forgets. They are readying paperwork for a new draft of soldiers moving to the front lines. Christopher thinks about the absurdity of war, the bungling bureaucracy, and the hypocrisy of the wealthy back home. McKechnie is angry and blames his uncle for where he is. Christopher assumes McKechnie must be related to General Campion. Christopher tells McKechnie that, following the disbanding of a Kitchener battalion, the commanding officer told them, “There will be no more parades” (306). All the while, an air-raid siren is sounding. A mortally wounded Welsh soldier, simply referred to as 09 Morgan, comes into the tent. He dies in Christopher’s arms. The soldier had asked for leave, but Christopher would not grant his request. The authorities back home told Christopher not to let him come home because 09 Morgan’s wife was sleeping with a prizefighter, and 09 Morgan would be beaten or killed by the fighter. Christopher nevertheless feels guilty about 09 Morgan’s death.
Christopher tries to picture Valentine but cannot. He hasn’t had any mail from home in weeks.
Book 2, Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
The All-Clear is given shortly after 09 Morgan is carried away. Christopher and McKechnie return to their paperwork. Christopher tries to help every soldier who comes to him, no matter what.
Christopher thinks back on the day he left home. He compares Sylvia to Eurydice, a character in Greek mythology.
Colonel Levin enters the tent and says he needs to speak to Christopher. Christopher assumes Levin needs his help speaking to his French girlfriend, since Levin cannot speak the language. Christopher also reflects that he is superior to Levin in every way, except in military rank. Levin mentions they are going to see a woman sitting outside the gate in a car. It is Sylvia.
Book 2, Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Christopher is lying in his bunk, thinking about his relationship with Sylvia, referring to her in his mind by an offensive slur for a sexually active woman. He and Sylvia have not had any physical relations since she left him for a major in the army named Perowne, who is also stationed in the camp along with Christopher, attached to General Campion.
Christopher already considers himself among the dead. He tries to formulate his feelings for Valentine in the form of a military report. He cannot write, however. He recalls the fight he had with Sylvia before he departed. He believes Sylvia intended Valentine to become Christopher’s mistress. He remembers how Sylvia constantly accused him of having Valentine as his mistress. He sees Sylvia behind his motivation to ask Valentine to be exactly that. He swears he was never aware of his passion for Valentine before Sylvia’s accusations. He does not understand the game Sylvia is playing with him. Christopher remembers what Father Consett said that Sylvia would do, should Christopher, ever find another woman: She would “tear the world” apart to enact revenge. Christopher wonders what went so wrong between them. He recalls why Sylvia came to France: to make sure he was still alive. He approached the car but did not speak to Sylvia. She drove away as soon as he had come in sight. He will have to see her, though, at Colonel Levin’s nuptial party.
Book 2, Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
McKechnie speaks with a soldier from his former battalion while Christopher is in his bunk. He hears the soldier lament the loss of 09 Morgan, and Christopher pictures the man’s bloody, dying face. They hear marching outside. The rails have been sabotaged so the men cannot be transferred. Christopher personally marches the men to their tents.
The next day, while riding a captured German horse named Schomburg, Christopher reflects on his morning. He likens God to a wealthy English landowner, and Christ to a great steward. He believes good English literature ended in the 17th century.
That morning, he learned that McKechnie is Macmaster’s nephew. Colonel Levin and he met again, and Christopher learned he is being transferred to the Front. He remembers Mark wanted to get him transferred to a relatively safe transportation unit. It would make Valentine happy to know he was in a safe unit. Christopher goes back to his unit and prepares them for “his parade” (375). Back on Schomburg, the horse is acting sluggish because of an experimental method of hardening the horses used by Lord Beichan, who oversees them all. Christopher countermands the order and wants the horse kept warm, not cold. He will probably get in trouble for it. A skylark flies overhead. Christopher figures it is oversexed.
Book 2, Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
From the very beginning, the various meanings of the title, No More Parades, are introduced. The first comes from Christopher’s anecdote about a Kitchener battalion. A Kitchener battalion was a specially formed unit that kept friends and family together in the same unit. It was instituted by Lord Herbert Kitchener to improve unit cohesion and morale for a protracted war. The idea was that the men who signed up together would stay together throughout the war. Christopher tells McKechnie the anecdote of a Kitchener battalion falling out and being told, “There will be no more parades…” (306), while the song Land of Hope and Glory played in the background. The Kitchener battalions were formed after the beginning of the war; and thus, being told there will be no more parades is an admission that the unit serves no other purpose than combat. This is the first meaning of “no more parades.”
A second meaning for no more parades is alluded to in Chapter 4, Page 366. Christopher makes a light remark about no more parades relating to specific aspects of English culture, like cricket, which have become antiquated. No more parades means an end to the old ways of life.
In Chapter 2, after the death of 09 Morgan, Christopher and McKechnie play a game involving a sonnet. McKechnie provides the rhymes for all the lines, and Christopher will write the rest in 2.5 minutes. It is a way for Christopher to focus on something positive after just witnessing a man’s death, for which he feels responsible. However, McKechnie, who feels he is at the very least Christopher’s equal in everything, decides that he will then take Christopher’s sonnet and translate it into Latin hexameter in under 3 minutes. The Latin triggers in Christopher the memory of the day Sylvia left for Paddington. The significance of Paddington and the memory are not revealed until later, but Sylvia’s leaving for Paddington train station meant to Christopher that she was leaving for the convent at Birkenhead. Retreating to a convent implied the dissolution of their relationship, leaving Christopher free to be with Valentine.
Regarding Sylvia, the chapter compares her to two Greek mythological figures. The first Greek mythological comparison fits well with the image the reader has been given of Sylvia’s character. On Page 339, Christopher imagines Sylvia in the convent at Birkenhead. The serpentine language he uses makes one think of a gorgon. The most notable gorgon in Greek mythology is Medusa.
The second comparison occurs on Page 318. Christopher compares Sylvia’s leaving for Paddington with Eurydice’s death and subsequent confinement in Hades. The comparison causes the reader acquainted with Greek mythology to pause. Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus, a skilled musician. He was so distraught over her death, and played so mournfully, that he was eventually able to bring her back to the world of the living. Love seems the antithesis to Christopher’s feelings for Sylvia; however, the comparison makes sense when one knows that Sylvia, like Eurydice, goes away and returns. Yet perhaps the absence of love is not as definitive as one is made to believe. Sylvia’s true feelings for Christopher are masked by ambiguity throughout the novel. The first hint of this ambiguity occurred in the first novel, Some Do Not…, when Sylvia guarantees Christopher’s bank account so he would not overdraw. Whether she does this for his sake or her own, because having a husband who overdraws would look too bad for her, is a point of ambiguity.
