The Lords of Discipline (1980) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• The Cadet in the starring role is probably Pat Conroy in disguise. Other characters are his best friends, 3 other cadets, and the parents of his closest of these 3 friends. Pig is the name of one of them.: Add a description of this character.
• Tradd Prioleau St. Croix: One of Will’s roommates that comes from a wealthy family.
• Dante `Pig` Pignetti: One of Will’s roommates. Big and strong, but not real smart.
• Mark Santoro: One of Will’s roommates at the Institute.
• Colonel Thomas ‘Bear’ Berrineau: Commandant of Cadets at The Institute. Man to see at the college if you are in trouble. Gives will and assignment to look after one of his 'lambs' and see if he can dig up anything about a group known as The Ten
• Mr. Will McLean: Student at The Institute, a military college, the protagonist.
• Tom Pearce: First black student accepted at The Institute when will is a senior. Bear assigns Will to look after him.
• Annie Kate Gervais: Love interest for Will Mclean
• Abigail St. Croix: Mother of Tradd St. Croix
• John Alexander: One of the cadets in the hero's class who excels and wants to lead.
• Bentley Durrell: The General that is the head of the school
• Frank Maccabee
• Gooch Fraser
• Jim Rowland
• Mrs. Berrineau
• Quigley
• Susie
• Bill Agee
• Bo Maybank
• Johnny DuBruhl
• Cecil Snipes
• Rodney Harris
• Graham Craig
• Mrs. Durrell
• Dwight David Eisenhower
• Harvey Clearwater
• Lancey Hemphill
• Paul Newman
• Osceola
• Wentworth
• Oswald Spengler
• Murray Seivers
• Mahaffy
• Mr. Fox
• Dave Dunbar
• David Foxworth Johnson
• Commerce
• Doug Cumming
• Kitty Genovese
• Kersey
• Gauldin Grace
• Otto
• Isabel Archer
• Howie Snyders
• Jim Massengale
• Mrs. Gervais
• Edward T. Reynolds
• Mudge
• Rodney Aimar
• Beasley
• Adamson
• Lee
• Mr. Poteete
• Wayne Braselton
• Rin-Tin-Tin
• Reuben Clapsaddle
• Sally
• Mr. Jones
• Henry Peak
• Edgar Allan Poe
• George Washington
• Theresa
• General Homer Stone
• Al Durrell
• Byrum
• Daniel Molligen
• Webb Stockton
• Matt Ledbetter
• Jimmy Mance
• Mr. Blasingame
• Eddie Sheer
• Bobby Bentley
• John Kinnell
• Cain Gilbreath
• Susan Galassi

Quotes edit see section history

• “I wear the ring and I return often to the city of Charleston, South Carolina, to study the history of my becoming a man. My approach to Charleston is always silent and distracted, but I come under full sail, with hissing silk and memories a-wing above me in the shapes of the birds I love best: old brown pelicans, great blue herons, cowbirds, falcons lost at sea, ospreys lean from dives, and eagles over schools of mullet. I am a low-country boy. My entrance to this marsh-hunted city is always filled with troubled meditations on both my education and my solitude during a four-year residence at The Institute.”

  Will McLean

• “The city of Charleston, in the green feathery modesty of its palms, in the certitude of its style, in the economy and stringency of its lines, and the serenity of its mansions South of Broad Street, is a feast for the human eye. But to me, Charleston is a dark city, a melancholy city, whose severe covenants and secrets are as powerful and beguiling as its elegance, whose demons dance their alley dances and compose their malign hymns to the side of the moon I cannot see. I studied those demons closely once, and they helped kill off the boy in me.”

  Will McLean

• “Though I will always be a visitor to Charleston, I will always remain one with a passionate belief that it is the most beautiful city in America and that to walk the old section of the city at night is to step into the bloodstream of a history extravagantly lived by a people born to a fierce and unshakable advocacy of their past. To walk in the spire-proud shade of Church Street is to experience the chronicle of a mythology that is particular to this city and this city alone, a Trinitarian mythology with equal parts of the sublime, the mysterious, and the grotesque. But there is nothing to warn you of Charleston’s refined cruelty. That knowledge must be earned. No gargoyles hang from the sides of St. Philip’s or St. Michael’s. No messages are in the iron scrollwork of its gates to warn visitor like Poe, Osceola, me, and you.”

  Will McLean

• “Sally. Why did she have to have a name like Sally? I thought. Why did she have to be granted so sweet and quileless a name? The Sallys of the world were gentle and innocent and shy; the Sallys I had known id not even suspect the existence of such a sleazy demimondes as this one beneath a tent in North Charleston.”

  Will McLean

• “I have eyes that give people what they want, eyes that whore in order to please, commiserate, endorse, affirm. People take from my eyes anything and everything that they need. Usually, I am simply looking at someone as they tell me a story; I am later amazed to discover they have believed I was agreeing with them completely. I have the eyes of a ward politician or a priest on the make with choirboys. I have eyes I have learned to distrust completely.”

  Will McLean

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• There is merit in forgetfulness. It is one of the gentlest forms of healing—and one of the most dangerous.

  Highlighted by 76 Kindle customers

• Bad teachers do not touch me; the great ones never leave me. They ride with me during all my days, and I pass on to others what they have imparted to me. I exchange their handy gifts with strangers on trains, and I pretend the gifts are mine. I steal from the great teachers. And the truly wonderful thing about them is they would applaud my theft, laugh at the thought of it, realizing they had taught me their larcenous skills well.

  Highlighted by 70 Kindle customers

• They had taught me about power and the abuse of power. Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.

  Highlighted by 68 Kindle customers

• I never seemed to learn from joy; I earned my portion of wisdom through sadness.

  Highlighted by 61 Kindle customers

• You had to decide what was estimable and precious in your life and set out to find it. The objects you valued defined you.

  Highlighted by 56 Kindle customers

• If I could always be waging war against a Snipes, I would never have to turn a cold eye inward to discover the subtle and unexamined evil in myself.

  Highlighted by 50 Kindle customers

• Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration, like an albino.

  Highlighted by 49 Kindle customers

• The adversary who is truly formidable is the one who works within the fortress walls, singing pleasant songs while licking honey off knives.

  Highlighted by 48 Kindle customers

• The sweetness of Southern women often conceals the secret deadliness of snakes. It has helped them survive the impervious tyranny of Southern men more comfortable with a myth than a flesh-and-blood woman.

  Highlighted by 47 Kindle customers

• I wonder how many humans have died because sons wanted to prove themselves worthy of their fathers?

  Highlighted by 38 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• North Charleston
• Vietnam
• South Carolina
• Broad Street
• East Bay Street

First Sentence edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Pat Conroy (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3553.O5198 L6 1980
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Lords of Discipline (1983) (IMDb): Staring David Keith, Michael Biehn, and Robert Prosky

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history