The Long Walk

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2, Chapters 3-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-12

Part 2, Chapters 13-16

Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Background

Authorial Context: Stephen King’s Pseudonym

The Long Walk was published in 1979 under Stephen King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman. Because King was already such a prolific novelist, his publishers worried that his considerable output would oversaturate the market and make him less exciting to a reading public. Signet Books thus agreed to publish some of his work under a pseudonym. King created a lengthy biography for Bachman and even used a photo of his agent’s friend for the jacket cover.

The first novel published under the name Bachman was Rage (1977), which depicts a school shooting. Unfortunately, a series of school shooters in the 1980s and 1990s claimed that King’s text influenced them. In 1997, a high school student shot eight peers, and a copy of Rage was found in his locker. King immediately requested that the novel go out of print. The 1985 collection The Bachman Books included the novels Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man; King requested that this collection go out of print too, with the later three novels continuing to be published separately.

As is the case with several texts written by a famous author under a pseudonym, the discovery of the identity of “Bachman” propelled The Long Walk to the bestseller list. (Likewise, for instance, Robert Gailbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling became massively successful after Galbraith was revealed as J.K. Rowling.) In 1985, a bookstore clerk (and avid reader) noticed similarities between the writing styles of Bachman and King, and used the publication records in the Library of Congress to reach out to the publishers. Signet put the clerk in contact with King, who agreed to be interviewed and “outed” by him. King’s 1989 novel The Dark Half was dedicated to “the late Richard Bachman.” Both King and Rowling were reportedly curious to see whether they could sell books when not associated with their majorly recognizable brand; while Rowling was reportedly “outed” by her publishers, King’s “outing” by a reader made the discovery of his pseudonym more palatable to readers.

King’s texts have resonated with audiences—and enjoyed commercial and critical success—since the 1970s, leading to several adaptations. Several producers and directors have purchased the rights to The Long Walk since the 1980s, but (as of 2023) none have completed an adaptation.

Cultural Context: Anti-War Sentiment in the 1970s

Although Carrie was published in 1974, The Long Walk was written first, when Stephen King was a freshman in college (1966-67). The year 1966 was a major time of anti-Vietnam War activism as college students were increasingly conscripted, and one can easily see how the fear of an authoritarian institution and the certainty of impending death for young men informed the novel.

The Vietnam War forced young men in America to confront new ideas about masculinity and one’s relationship to authority. While the young adults of the 1950s were generally more inclined to trust the government and believe that the military had their best interests at heart, young adults of the 1960s were understandably far more critical about the military’s role in their everyday lives.

Just as second-wave feminism of the 1960s concurrently helped formulate and spread new expressions of femininity, new conceptions of the military perpetuated long-embedded forms of masculinity while espousing a new brand of masculinity. The US government has long prided itself on difficult tests of physical and mental strength; the Army’s Delta Force selection process often has less than a 10% passing rate, and the acceptance rate of FBI special agents is less than 5%.

In The Long Walk, the winner must have not only physical strength but also the capacity to mentally endure difficult conditions. The boys evaluate each other’s appearances, wondering whose build and bulk will allow them to complete the arduous Walk. As the boy named Abraham notes, the selection process includes not only a physical component but also an essay that appears to further evaluate mental capacity. Similar tropes of selection processes are depicted in the texts described in the Genre Context section of this guide.

Genre Context: The Dystopian Coming-of-Age Story

This text occupies the cross-section of multiple genres, including bildungsroman and dystopian fiction. The bildungsroman, or coming-of-age tale, typically describes the growth of an adolescent character who encounters new conflict. (The word bildungsroman combines two German words: bildung, meaning education/forming, and roman, meaning novel.) Often, something significant is at stake: one’s home, family, or identity. Typical archetypes of bildungsroman fiction include the friends made along the way and the mentor figure; like the hero’s journey, the archetypal coming-of-age tale requires several side characters to aid, guide, and/or challenge the protagonist. In The Long Walk, Garraty is forced to come of age as he journeys along the Walk, learning about himself and his friends. The Major represents a subverted version of the wise mentor figure; like most of the boys, Garraty’s feelings toward him vacillate between admiration, fear, and loathing—but all the boys nevertheless demonstrate a need to appease him and learn from him.

Examinations of insular communities governed by horrific rules have long fascinated audiences, and such examinations gained traction after World War II as readers were gripped by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948) and William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies (1954). After the publication of Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993), dystopian fiction became a popular subcategory of young adult fiction. Recent examples of dystopian fiction include Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games series (2008-2010); Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale (1999); Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), adapted as a television series starting in 2017; the South Korean television survival drama series Squid Game (2021), as well as postapocalyptic adaptations that include Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), adapted into a 2009 film; The Walking Dead television franchise (beginning in 2010), adapted from a comic book series; and The Last of Us television series (beginning in 2023), adapted from a 2013 video game.

The dystopian lens allows readers to examine the human condition through conflicts of man versus man, man versus nature, or man versus self. Often, dystopian worlds reflect generational concerns about the era in which they were written (as noted above, The Long Walk reflected social anxieties about being sent to Vietnam). Both the bildungsroman and dystopian novel feature a protagonist who encounters a significant power structure and must accept or rebel against a totalitarian authority.