34 pages • 1 hour read
The Lords of Discipline
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Fellowship and Brotherhood
Despite the sinister truths that emerge in its final segment, The Lords of Discipline is also a book about the powers of friendship and brotherhood among young men. Most notably, Conroy’s novel traces the deep yet unlikely bonds that emerge among four roommates with radically different backgrounds and personalities—Will, Tradd, Mark, and Pig. Their closeness is the product of shared trials (plebe year) and shared moments of triumph (gatherings at the St. Croix house, the county fair, the Ring ceremony). But the concept of brotherhood is meant to extend well beyond this quartet of characters: the members of any given Institute class or Institute regiment are meant also to regard one another as brothers. Though the discovery of The Ten tests Will’s sense of fellowship with the other seniors, the young men who have most intensely regarded Will as a friend and brother—Mark, Pig, and even Tradd, in his immensely flawed way—do their best to offer him support and solace.
Discipline
The theme that appears in the very title of the book, discipline structures life at the Institute, guiding both the military activities of the students and the worldview that Institute men are meant to absorb. The Institute sets out to craft “Whole Men” who live up to its standards and visions. The physical and mental trials of plebe year are meant to cull those students who will never attain the school’s lofty standards of self-discipline, and to begin molding those students who are suited to such rigors. Those students who do last through such ordeals must then adhere to the outward forms of discipline—cleanliness, orderliness, and ceremonial performance—that the Institute values among upperclassmen, all while disciplining themselves to become productive members of the armed forces or of society at large.
Secrecy
As the events of Will’s senior year progress, both the reader and Will himself discover a series of unpleasant secrets about the Institute and about life in Charleston. The action of Conroy’s final segment is driven by Will’s campaign against The Ten—a secret society that ejects “undeserving” Institute students and that is known about by non-members only through rumors and myths. Along with this source of intrigue, Will must deal with a second type of secrecy: the delicate treatment of Annie Kate’s pregnancy. Little does he know that the secret of Annie Kate’s child is linked to yet more secrets, involving some of the people closest to him—Tradd, Abigail, and Commerce, who have handled Annie Kate’s pregnancy and social exile from behind the scenes.
Social and Cultural Class
The Charleston society of The Lords of Discipline has its own aristocracy—an elite made up of time-honored and moneyed Southern families such as Tradd’s. It is impossible for a woman who occupies a lower place in the social hierarchy, such as Annie Kate Gervais, to truly inhabit this world. The Charleston elite is somewhat more hospitable to men of relatively “lowly” origins such as Will, Mark, and Pig, who lack the prestigious family roots and Southern Protestant backgrounds that define Charleston’s upper echelons. Conroy never lets us forget that, for all its occasional generosity, this social setting is still governed by social and cultural demarcations. Will may be an acceptable enough companion for Tradd, but an unwed mother such as Annie Kate, or an African-American student such as Pearce, is far less likely to gain such approval in such a strictly conservative milieu.
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By Pat Conroy
