Christopher Tietjens and his colleague Macmaster travel by train discussing social morality while Christopher awaits Sylvia's telegram response.

Sylvia meets confessor Father Consett at a German spa and declares she intends to torment her husband Christopher.

Christopher intervenes on a golf course to rescue suffragette Valentine Wannop and her friend from arrest.

Christopher and Valentine ride through the foggy night in a carriage, connecting intellectually and growing emotionally closer.

Christopher returns from war having been hospitalized with shell shock; Sylvia throws a plate at him during lunch.

Christopher formally asks Valentine to become his mistress; she agrees, but they part without sleeping together.

A Welsh soldier named O9 Morgan is mortally wounded in an air raid and dies in Christopher's arms.

Christopher learns that Sylvia has arrived in France, despite his belief that she had entered a convent.

Perowne intrudes on Christopher and Sylvia in her hotel room; the confrontation with General O'Hara leads to Christopher's arrest.

General Campion interrogates Christopher about the hotel scandal and orders him transferred to the front-line trenches.

On Armistice Day, Valentine receives a phone call from Edith Ethel reporting that Christopher has returned from the war.

Christopher takes command of his battalion in the Flanders trenches after the regular colonel falls seriously ill.

Valentine arrives at Christopher's furniture-stripped home on Armistice Day; soldiers who served with him arrive to celebrate.

Christopher and Valentine finally dance together in his upstairs room while the gathered soldiers cheer around them.

Sylvia tells Valentine she will divorce Christopher; Mark Tietjens then breaks his long silence and dies.

Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant English traditionalist, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the vindictive Sylvia while slowly falling for the intellectual Valentine Wannop. As war breaks out, Sylvia's rumormongering undermines Christopher at home and abroad, eventually following him to France where her scheming gets him sent to the front lines. Christopher endures the horrors of trench command while Valentine waits in England, both longing for each other from a distance. On Armistice Day, Valentine rushes to Christopher's side despite warnings from her mother and the noise of public celebration. The two finally unite and dance together, signaling the beginning of the life they have long delayed. In the aftermath, Sylvia surrenders her campaign against them and Mark Tietjens dies having made peace with Christopher's choices.

The headline events driving Christopher from pre-war England to post-war renewal.

At the Duchemin breakfast, Mrs. Wannop reveals that Christopher's father secretly supported her financially after her husband's death.

Macmaster and Mrs. Duchemin share a private kiss after the breakfast and arrange to meet again at dusk.

Christopher seizes the reins and stops Mrs. Wannop's runaway carriage on a country road, earning her gratitude.

Lord Port Scatho arrives with Sylvia's damaging letter of rumors; Christopher methodically disproves every allegation against him.

Mark tells Valentine, while sitting on a bench near the War Office, that her mother has inherited Tietjens money.

Valentine's drunk brother Edward urges Christopher to kiss Valentine; the two walk outside together but part without intimacy.

Sylvia leverages her hold over the besotted Major Perowne to smuggle herself into France without an official pass.

Sylvia appeals to the imagined ghost of Father Consett, asking him to show her one decent man at the hotel.

Colonel Levin accompanies Christopher to inspect the cook houses, then reveals that Sylvia is waiting at the camp gate.

Valentine considers resigning from her teaching post after suspecting Edith Ethel has destroyed her reputation with the headmistress.

A shell explosion buries Christopher alive in the trenches; he digs out the wounded Aranjuez, who loses an eye.

Mark lies bedridden and mute alongside Marie Léonie, who privately believes the Armistice news caused his collapse.

Mrs. de Bray Pape and young Mark Jr. visit the bedridden Mark seeking permission to cut down Groby Great Tree.

Sylvia rides with General Campion and weighs divorcing Christopher in order to marry the General for social prestige.

Groby Great Tree, the great cedar symbolizing the Tietjens family, is felled as a direct result of Sylvia's scheming.

While Christopher and Valentine's romance unfolds at the center of the story, the lives of those around them are equally marked by self-interest, sacrifice, and deception. Macmaster's social climbing through Mrs. Duchemin and his theft of Christopher's statistics reveal the rot beneath polished Edwardian surfaces. Back in England between campaigns, Valentine navigates rumors, financial hardship, and the threat of losing her teaching post. In France, Sylvia's manipulation of Perowne and her ghostly appeal to Father Consett show the lengths she will go to reclaim Christopher's attention. After the war, the Tietjens household in the English countryside becomes the final arena, where Mark lies bedridden, Sylvia schemes about Groby Great Tree, and the ancient symbol of family identity is ultimately cut down. These secondary events form the texture of a world collapsing around the two central figures.

The supporting events that shaped the lives of everyone around Christopher and Valentine.

After meeting Valentine at the Duchemin breakfast, Christopher privately realizes she would make an ideal mistress.

General Campion confronts Christopher at the golf club about Sylvia's rumors and questions his connection to the protesters.

Christopher and Valentine walk through the countryside together; he steers them off the main road, fearing their being seen.

General Campion nearly runs Christopher and Valentine down with his speeding automobile on the foggy late-night road.

During lunch, Sylvia and Christopher openly discuss their son's uncertain paternity and Christopher's likelihood of dying in battle.

Mark and Christopher walk together; Christopher refuses all inheritance from his father for having believed Sylvia's rumors about him.

Valentine privately recalls how Macmaster used Christopher's falsified statistics to earn a knighthood, permanently ending their friendship.

Mark compares Christopher and Valentine to Dante and Beatrice; Valentine resolves she must be with Christopher regardless of consequences.

Christopher confronts a senior officer who has branded him an untrustworthy spy and demands to be sent to the Front.

Sylvia hears the Venusberg music playing in the hotel ballroom and recognizes it, intensifying her determination to reclaim Christopher.

McKechnie delivers his Latin sonnet translation to Christopher; the Latin unexpectedly triggers thoughts of Valentine, clarifying his enduring feelings.

Christopher realizes in the Flanders trenches that what peace means to him is simply having Valentine as someone to talk to.

Valentine arrives at Christopher's home and resists reading an open letter from Sylvia while her mother calls to warn her away.

Mark recalls that Christopher's refusal to accept Tietjens money revealed an unforgivable grudge, and the realization triggers Mark's stroke.

Sylvia learns that Valentine is pregnant and immediately reverses course, rushing to stop the harm she has already set in motion.

Beneath the surface events of Parade's End lie the private moments of clarity, confrontation, and moral reckoning that truly drive the story forward. From Christopher's secret recognition that Valentine would make an ideal companion, to his refusal of his father's inheritance over a matter of pride and forgiveness, these are the decisions that define his character. Sylvia's obsessions are revealed through her recognition of the Venusberg music and her ruthless rumormongering, while Christopher's emotional defenses crack in the trenches when the Latin of a translated sonnet unexpectedly conjures Valentine's name. His subsequent realization that peace simply means having someone to talk to strips the war's meaning down to its most human core. After the war, Mark's silent reckoning with the stroke-triggering moment and Sylvia's sudden reversal upon learning of Valentine's pregnancy bring both the family conflict and the broader social upheaval to a close. These turning points form the novel's true emotional architecture.

The key discoveries, private decisions, and emotional shifts that define the novel's true arc.