Community & tradition

• 'We’re not hurtful people. We are, though, fearful, proud and dutiful. We do what must be done' - ch 2 


  • justification for actions - convincing themselves they are not inherently hurtful
  • tied to their land - sense they are acting out of necessity to protect it - duty to land overrides other moral considerations - compels them to act in its defence
• ‘Take off your slippers, go barefoot, take the first step on the field... All you need to do is find a single grain’ - ch 4 


  • lizzie Carr instructed by Kent
  • connection between human & earth
  • lizzie carr is a symbol of the future - the grain symbolises the future
  • tradition - symbol continuing time
• ‘There’s something in these shapes and lines, in these casual, un-directed blues and greens, that, for all their liveliness seems desolate’ - ch 8 


  • proleptic of deserting of village
  • underlying emptiness undercuts beauty
  • hints at a world losing its structure - social unravelling taking place - community ties collapsing
• 'We've ploughed these fields since Adams time' - ch 11 


  • reflecting on deep generational connection to land as they are forced to leave
  • sense of loss of identity as they leave all they have known behind
  • 'Adam' emphasises age-old, almost sacred nature of this relationship
  • sense of tragedy of being severed from land
• 'ploughing is our sacrament, our solemn oath, the way we … consecrate our land' - ch 14 


  • ploughing done as a sacred ritual - powerful expression of identity, continuity & communal tradition
  • act becomes a symbolic communion with the generations of villagers who came before him
  • protest asserts that the land still bears the marks of those who once worked it & history cannot be erased so easily
  • 'the stubborn patch of barely' he leaves is a physical interruption in Jordan's vision of economic efficiency & linear progress
  • land holds memory and meaning, and that traditional rhythms of rural life will not vanish without resistance