CCEA GCSE English Literature How Many Miles to Babylon Exam Questions

About CCEA GCSE English Literature How Many Miles to Babylon

How Many Miles to Babylon is a set novel for CCEA GCSE English Literature Unit 1: The Study of Prose, Section A, answered from a choice of two questions in a closed-book exam. Narrated by Alexander Moore as he awaits execution, the novel looks back on his friendship with Jerry Crowe, a Catholic labourer's son, across divisions of class and religion in early twentieth-century Ireland and then in the trenches of the First World War. CCEA rewards a thoughtful response, analysis of Johnston's retrospective narration and spare style, and an understanding of Irish and wartime context.

Key themes, characters and context

• Alexander Moore Alec is the lonely son of an Anglo-Irish Protestant landowning family. He narrates from a cell, which gives the story a mood of regret and inevitability.
• Jerry Crowe Jerry is a confident Catholic boy from a poor family. His friendship with Alec is natural but disapproved of because of class and religion.
• Alec's parents His mother Alicia is cold and manipulative and pushes him to enlist, claiming his father is not his real father. His father Frederick is gentler but distant.
• Major Glendinning Glendinning is a harsh, class-conscious officer who sees the friendship as a threat to discipline. He forces the crisis at the end.
• The ending Jerry leaves to search for his missing father and is sentenced to death for desertion. Alec shoots Jerry himself to spare him the firing squad and is condemned in turn.
• Context Irish soldiers of different backgrounds served in the British Army during the First World War, while tensions over Irish independence grew at home.

Common mistakes in How Many Miles to Babylon

• Forgetting the narrative frame. Alec narrates while awaiting execution, which shapes the tone of everything he describes.
• Simplifying the friendship. Show how class and religion limit it even before the war.
• Calling Alec a coward. Explore his act at the end as one of love and moral courage within an unjust system.
• Ignoring Johnston's style. Comment on her restrained, understated language and use of dialogue.
• Writing about the war generally. Tie context to specific characters and events in the novel.

Try three How Many Miles to Babylon practice questions