The Red and the Green is a 1965 novel by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch

Dame Iris Murdoch DBE was an Irish-born British author and philosopher, best known for her novels about political and social questions of good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious...

 that covers the events leading up to and during the Easter Rebellion in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. It is written in a different style than Murdoch's other fiction, but like the other novels deals with complex family relationships, which has some relationship to the author's own family.

It is interesting for Murdoch's use of existentialism

Existentialism

Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...

 in the actions of its main protagonist Andrew Chase-White, an Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...

man who has volunteered and become a young officer in the King Edward's Horse

King Edward's Horse

King Edward's Horse was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1901, which saw service in the Boer War and the First World War.-Early history:...

regiment, leading to a conflict with the other, Catholic side of his family.