The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy’s 1980 novel set at a military college, chronicles four years in the life of a cadet in training. Conroy, who attended a military college himself, does not shy away from describing the darker side of military training, including relentless, brutal hazing and racism. The novel is divided into four parts, with a brief opening note preceding the story. Before the plot gets underway, protagonist and narrator Will McLean explains to the reader his reasons for writing about the Institute, as he calls his alma mater: he does not intend to engage in rose-tinted nostalgia, but to show his deeply mixed feelings about the complicated, corrupt school that made him a man.

In the first part, titled “The Cadre,” the reader is introduced to life at the Carolina Military Institute, a Charleston, South Carolina military college, and to Will, a sensitive English major. Will is in his senior year at the school, having survived the notoriously hellish “plebe” (the Institute’s term for freshman) year. Will arrives back at school before the rest of the class, as he has been chosen to address the freshman class on the college’s standards of honor and integrity. He is placed in charge of Pearce, the Institute’s first and only black student, as the administrators fear that Pearce may be the target of racist violence.

Will’s three roommates—the mannered and wealthy Tradd St. Croix, the straightforward Mark Santoro, and the astonishingly strong Dante “Pig” Pignetti—return to campus. After spending an evening at the St. Croix mansion in old Charleston, Will meets Annie Kate Gervais, a Charleston girl hiding from local society because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

Though Will successfully establishes contact with Pearce, the year takes a dark turn when a plebe named Poteete has a nervous breakdown. Poteete is deeply upset by the harsh treatment he receives from the upperclassmen: he tries to commit suicide by jumping off an Institute building, but fails. He then hangs himself, and his words about a mysterious house where he was taken continue to haunt Will.

In the novel’s second section, titled “The Taming,” Will flashes back to his own hellish plebe year. Will attends the school on a basketball scholarship, but is introduced to the Institute’s sadistic hazing process within minutes of arriving on campus, as he is beaten up by upperclassmen. Will does not take naturally to military training, and is further isolated by his background. Whereas most of the school’s students are the sons of the Southern elite—well-bred, moneyed, and Protestant—Will is an Irish Catholic with few means. Will survives Hell Night, a school tradition in which the plebes are terrorized, beaten, and humiliated, supposedly as a way to drive out the weak. In the course of such trials, Will befriends Tradd, whose effete ways make him something of an outsider. The two of them are also drawn to Pig and Mark, Northerners who stand out for their honesty, good humor, and physical prowess.

The novel jumps back to Will’s senior year in its next section, “The Wearing of the Ring.” As the seasons pass, Will forms a bond with Annie Kate, easing her through her exile from society by accompanying her on rambles along Charleston’s beaches. The two become sexually intimate, and Will loses his virginity to her. At the Institute, Will is exhilarated by how his last few semesters unfold: he feels fellowship with his classmates as they receive their Institute Rings, and plays a triumphant final basketball game against the Virginia Military Institute, scoring the winning shot himself. However, after the game, he discovers that Pearce has been targeted by a mysterious student organization known as The Ten, which intends to run Pearce out of the Institute.

Conroy opens his novel’s final section, “The Ten,” by returning to Will’s relationship with Annie Kate. While Will is at Tradd’s house for a gathering that draws together the Charleston elite and Institute cadets, Annie Kate calls, saying she is having her baby. Will rushes her to the hospital, but the baby is stillborn; after this harrowing event, Annie Kate cuts off all contact with Will.

Will is becoming more and more suspicious about The Ten, believing that they now pose an imminent threat to Pearce. He contacts an old roommate who dropped out in plebe year, Bobby Bentley, who recounts that The Ten doused him in gasoline and threatened to ignite him if he didn’t leave the Institute. Bobby names one of his attackers as Dan Molligen. Mark, Will, and Pig kidnap Molligen and threaten him, tying him to railroad tracks until he agrees to tell them about The Ten. He reveals that the group uses the house of General Durrell, the Institute President, for their torture sessions. Will returns to school and finds that Pearce is missing. He goes to General Durrell’s house and finds Pearce in a room surrounded by older cadets, who are electrocuting him. One of the torturers receives a phone call, apparently alerting him to Will’s presence, but Will escapes with the help of Pig and Mark, who trail him and fight off members of The Ten.

In retribution, The Ten wages a campaign to oust Will, Pig, and Mark: Pig is put on trial by the school’s honor court for stealing gasoline from Will’s car and is quickly expelled. In full view of the school, Pig walks out of the gates, then kills himself by stepping in front of an oncoming train. Will and Mark are then slated for expulsion for a series of minor, trumped-up honor violations. With few other tactics left, Will goes to Tradd’s house to see if Tradd’s father has written about The Ten in his journals. He learns that The Ten has been a part of the Institute for years: Tradd himself is a member, and has been informing on Will. Helped by the Commandant of Cadets, Colonel Berrineau, Will uses the journals to blackmail Durrell into graduating him and Mark; then, Will confronts Tradd. It turns out that Tradd is the father of Annie Kate’s stillborn child, and though Tradd begs for Will’s sympathy, the once-warm relationship between Will and Tradd’s family is beyond repair. Both Will and Mark graduate. While Mark will die in Vietnam, Will will go on to write the history of the Institute, reassured by Berrineau that he, Will, is an honorable man.