Finding Masculinity in the "Great War": An Analytical Study of A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry Abstract This paper intends to show the relation between war and masculinity, through drawing a sketch of the masculine identity of the soldiers during the First World War (also known as the Great War). It studies the association between “ideal manhood” and wartime duties. The paper travels though the experience of Willie Dunne, a young Irish soldier in A Long Long Way (2005) by the Irish writer, Sebastian Barry. Through the paper, the researcher traces the social and familial pressures that lead Willie to enlist in the army, and to experience the atrocities of the First World War in order to search for his masculinity. Raywne Connell's concept of “hegemonic masculinity” is used to investigate how masculinity is represented in the selected novel and how war is considered a masculine field where society in general and parents in particular, push their sons to enlist in order to become real men.
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