[During The Long March] Mannix has been physically disabled and is about to be socially ostracized (at least by a part of society). But there has been no comparable emotional crisis. That inner compartment of the mind where a man reacts emotionally to the external world has not undergone any great change. Mannix is still the tortured man that he was before the march began, and, more significantly, he is still the deluded man.

The same thing cannot be said about Culver, however. His illusions have disappeared by the end of the march. He is no longer deluded by the thin veneer of order called civilization, for he has seen the chaos and disorder which seethe just beneath its surface. And as the forces of disorder prepare once again to crack open this veneer (this time in the form of the Korean War), his inner world of emotional...