The Ambiguity of Morality

Several times throughout the narrative, as Martyn and Alex work out both the generals and the specifics of how they're going to deal with the situation in which they find themselves, they discuss questions of whether what they're doing is right or wrong, good or evil, moral or immoral. They go back and forth on the question several times, with Martyn suggesting repeatedly that because no-one is being hurt there is, in effect, no real evil in what they're doing. At one point, Martyn even says that there is in fact no such thing as the law and that the law is really only one person's opinion. These sorts of questions about the nature of right and wrong resurface frequently, but nowhere in the novel are they as troubling as in its final moments. Alex, in the letter to Martyn from America that concludes the...