The Luck of Barry Lyndon · Chapter
Barry Far from Military Glory explained
After Captain Fagan's death, Barry falls into dissolute company, gambling and drinking with sergeants.
What happens
After Captain Fagan's death, Barry falls into dissolute company, gambling and drinking with sergeants. He is wounded while helping a wounded lieutenant at the Battle of Warburg, then knocked unconscious by a fellow soldier over a reward. He awakens to find himself kidnapped by a Prussian recruiter, Monsieur de Galgenstein, who enlists him by force into Frederick's army.
Themes in this chapter
Deception and Self-Delusion
Barry's boastful claim of royal Irish descent is mocked by Galgenstein, who notes that nearly every Irish recruit makes the same claim.
Violence and Dueling
Barry is struck with a musket butt by a comrade, then caned and beaten by Galgenstein during the forced enlistment.
Fate and Luck
Barry's fortunes turn sharply: from a small reward for helping an officer to being knocked unconscious and kidnapped into Prussian service.
Characters to notice
- Barry Lyndon
Narrator, now a young soldier of seventeen, descends into gambling and drinking after Captain Fagan's death, is wounded at Warburg, and is forcibly recruited into the Prussian army.
- Captain Fagan
Deceased protector of Barry; his death leaves Barry without a patron in the regiment.
- Lieutenant Rawson
Fagan's successor, who dislikes Barry and denies him a sergeant's vacancy.
- Monsieur de Galgenstein
Prussian recruiter who kidnaps Barry; later hanged as a spy in Strasbourg.
Key passages
“I descended gradually to mix with the sergeants, and to share their amusements: drinking and gambling were, I am sorry to say, our principal pastimes; and I fell so readily into their ways, that though only a young lad of seventeen, I was the master of them all in daring wickedness”
Barry admits he sank into the company of sergeants, taking up drinking and gambling, and by seventeen had become the most reckless among them.
Barry's moral decline after Fagan's death.
“I dashed forward to grapple with him, the two sergeants flung themselves on me, I was thrown to the ground and stunned again; being hit on my former wound in the head.”
Barry tried to fight the recruiter but was overpowered by sergeants and knocked unconscious, reopening his head wound.
Barry's violent forced enlistment into the Prussian army.