The Narrow Road to the Deep North

The Line, a symbol of progress and glory for the Japanese, is also a source of misery for the POWs: “The POWs refer to the slow descent into madness that followed simply with two words: the Line” (25). For the POWs, the long walk to the line offers sights of corpses and destruction. At the line, the men must perform grueling labor and endure beatings from their captors. To the Japanese, an unbroken line is a plan successfully executed as well as the literal idea of progress with respect to the railway. However, according to Dorrigo, every line breaks, and all lives end. When the Japanese abandon the railway, Dorrigo details the significance: “For the Line was broken, as all lines finally are; it was all for nothing, and of it nothing remained. People kept on longing for meaning and hope, but the annals of the past are a muddy story of chaos only” (270). Dorrigo acknowledges that the suffering in the camp was meaningless. Throughout the narrative, the Line represents oppression and hopelessness for the POWs. Dorrigo understands that while others may strive to find meaning in what happened at the Line, the chaotic nature of war and life itself ends with death, regardless of what men try to make of it.