One of the prevalent paradigms in Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End is the quest for an ethics of the relation to the other, not least to this other that constitutes the self. Identity in its etymological meaning of permanence of the same is extolled by the characters as an ultimate ideal that dismisses any form of alterity. The First World War channels an ontological crisis for the characters and generates a new awareness of the singularity of the other. The radical alterity of the enemy at first stirs a profound disgust within the protagonist, Tietjens; yet this initial abhorrence shifts into a realisation of the ethical necessity to sustain and preserve the other's singularity, which is being jeopardised by mass war. Tietjens’ salvation in the course of the novels is to be found in the deep experience of the other’s individuality: from this acceptance of the radical singularity of alterity, can emerge a reconciliation between the subject and his own alienations.