The Lords of Discipline

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1980

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: "The Wearing of the Ring"

Chapters 22-24 Summary

Part III returns us to 1966. Will recalls that two distinctive sounds defined life at the Institute: the roaring of a lion at a nearby zoo and the whistle of the 11:42 train that passes in the night. Having settled in now that the summer has passed, he and his roommates talk over romantic matters. Pig remains very defensive of his girlfriend, Theresa, and is moved to rage when fellow students so much as utter foul words in the presence of Theresa’s photograph. Tradd remains somewhat insecure about his delicate, “effeminate” persona; however, he has also made love to a woman over the summer, an achievement that Will has not matched. As Will settles in for sleep after talking some of these topics over, he hears the train’s whistle and the lion’s roar sound simultaneously, in what appears to be a strange omen.

Annie Kate’s pregnancy progresses, and Mrs. Gervais moves Annie Kate to the family beach house at Sullivan’s Island, where Will often joins Annie Kate for strolls along the shore. The two of them get into the habit of looking for sand dollars. Although Annie Kate remains somewhat distant and temperamental, Will has begun to develop strong romantic feelings for her. One evening, the two of them kiss tenderly, an experience that deepens Will’s devotion to the young woman.

With his roommates and several other cadets, Will also attends a county fair. The young men watch a raunchy, mother-daughter stripper show, then gather around Pig as he takes on the fair’s prizefighter, Otto the Facebreaker. Otto seems to get the better of Pig at first, but Tradd leaps into the ring and provides a temporary diversion. Pig then uses karate maneuvers to defeat Otto and claim a $100 prize.

Chapters 25-27 Summary

Will pays a visit to the St. Croix mansion. Commerce is going on a voyage and Will, Tradd, and Abigail have gathered to spend time with him. In the course of the conversation, Commerce talks about his journals, which he sees as his life’s work, and mentions a prank that he had once played on an Institute classmate—Bentley Durrell, the future General. Will himself realizes that his time at the Institute is drawing to a close. He takes part in the Ring ceremony, in which the assembled seniors are given class rings that indicate their brotherhood with all Institute graduates. Despite his frequently sarcastic nature, he finds the occasion powerful and affecting. In the course of the Ring celebration, Will has a conversation with the Bear: Pearce seems bound to make it through his first year, as far as Will can tell, yet—according to the Bear—The Ten has apparently re-surfaced and may be driving out other plebes.

To discover more about The Ten, Will approaches one of the instructors he most respects—the overweight, bigoted, and oddly eloquent Colonel Edward Reynolds. This historian has written a book on the history of the Institute. Apparently, most of the information that Reynolds found regarding The Ten was rumor, hearsay, and speculation; he had refrained from publishing such questionable accounts, and is sympathetic to The Ten’s mission to keep women and minorities from graduating from the Institute.

Chapters 28-30 Summary

The Institute campus receives an unsettling piece of news: General Durrell’s own son, Al, has been killed in Vietnam. In a sign of solidarity, the cadets gather on the lawn of the General’s house. The General’s wife exhorts them to go to Vietnam and kill as many enemies as they can, and a chant about going to Vietnam and killing the Vietcong rises from the assembly.

Will’s relationship with Annie Kate also appears to be intensifying. He buys her a Christmas present—a gold chain—and takes it to her at the beach house. During the visit, Will exchanges some harsh words with Annie Kate’s hard-drinking mother, who looks down on his “lowly” upbringing but passes out as Will is defending himself. Annie Kate then finds Will; the two of them retire to Annie Kate’s room and Will loses his virginity to her. He then rushes back to campus, makes it just in time for curfew, mentions his experience of intimacy to the Bear, and receives one of the Bear’s cigars as a token of congratulations.

The winter of Will’s senior year is a time of great, almost effortless joy for the young man. He especially remembers his final basketball game, which pitted his team against the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). In the course of this contest, Will faces off for the last time against a talented player named Jimmy Mance, whom Will deeply admires. The game goes into multiple overtimes, and Will ends the contest in a dramatic fashion by scoring the winning shot and receiving the accolades of his teammates and of the assembled cadets. After the game, however, Will is approached by Pearce. The plebe is afraid that The Ten is coming for him; to make matters worse, the note-based communication between Will and Pearce has been discovered and apparently disrupted. In a sign of sympathy, Will recognizes Pearce by his first name, Tom, and Pearce breaks into tears.

Part 3 Analysis

Having spent “The Taming” exposing the plebe system at its possible worst, Conroy shifts to material that can seem less intense in its plotting, more lighthearted in its tone. “The Wearing of the Ring” surveys the joys and triumphs of Will’s senior year: a budding romance, moments of solidarity among the cadets, and the culminating Ring ceremony that gives the entire segment its title. While handling a few different set pieces, The Lords of Discipline also returns to and reinvents some of its content. One topic that earlier on seemed like a rather minor plot point—Will’s involvement in basketball—is central to the climactic moment of victory that helps to draw “The Wearing of the Ring” to a close.

Yet there is a sense in which Will’s time as a senior seems too good to be true. Retrospectively, Will himself acknowledges as much, reflecting on his experience of hearing the lion and the train sound simultaneously: “At the time I thought it was a good omen, but I was wrong. I was very wrong” (258). Much as he did by dropping hints (the menaces of The Ten, Pig’s fate) throughout “The Cadre,” Will here acknowledges that there is something dark and dangerous about his time at the Institute. It is not clear, even now, what went so wrong for Will. But with the frightened Pearce’s re-emergence at the end of “The Wearing of the Ring,” the illusion of a harmonious Institute life is completely dispelled for both Will and Will’s readers.

Still, even without the disturbing turn that it takes in its final pages, “The Wearing of the Ring” is guided by the idea that Will’s happiness is not meant to last. For Will, basketball is not simply a game. It is a spiritual experience, one in which he “had learned that my grace came only in the full abandoned divinity of flight. I had known the joy, the pure orgasmic joy of the dance” (347). And he thinks of his time Annie Kate in the same manner, as a part of his life that speaks intensely and profoundly to his very soul. Will knows, however, that he must eventually play a last game; Annie Kate’s pregnancy and exile must run their course as well, leaving Will with a relationship that will either take a new form or be ruptured entirely by a change in Annie Kate’s lifestyle. As euphoric as “The Wearing of the Ring” can be, a careful reader can never forget that the forms Will’s euphoria takes are fleeting.