- Heroism? and the common man

- Main Social and political tensions before the Great War: the Irish question, the female Suffrage issues and fights, industrial unrest.

- The novel as a 'suffrage novel' and / or as a 'war novel'.

- Issues of narrative point of view in the text and as compared with The Return of the Soldier.

- Cicely Hamilton as a participant and witness to the suffrage fights before the war and as someone deeply involved in the war. Differences of experience, differences of perspective.