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

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Spectatorship and Spectacle

The motif of spectatorship helps dehumanize the Walkers. The relationship between Walkers and spectators reinforces the theme of Male Friendship and Masculinity; the boys define their sexuality and supposed desirability by the actions of female viewers. In addition, this relationship reinforces the theme of Resisting Oppression, as the boys accept being a part of a system that seeks to destroy them.

The epigraphs that appear at the beginning of each chapter emphasize the role of violence in entertainment. Combining quotes from game shows, war speeches, and violent sports, the juxtaposed quotes emphasize the different ways that people are willing to hurt each other and justify “civilized” violence. The Walk is mere entertainment for the spectators, who embrace it as an opportunity to gamble. The boys discuss an article that claims that spectators place more than two billion bets on the Walk each year. A spectator encourages Garraty, telling him, “I got ten bucks on you” (87). In addition, spectators are eager to claim objects from the Walkers. After Garraty loses his shoes, they’re quickly claimed (268), and even an empty chicken tube begins a “new career as a souvenir” (145).

Stephen King’s narrative raises the question of which is more dehumanizing: being a Walker or being a spectator. Garraty is initially flattered by the attention of the crowd in Maine but later tells McVries, “Those people, they’re animals. They want to see someone’s brains on the road, that’s why they turn out” (142). The Walkers are reduced to identification by number, and even among themselves, the boys find this system easier to use than remembering each other’s names; Garraty witnesses the murder of “a boy named Quincy or Quentin or something like that” (79). Referring to each other by number helps enable self-preservation, since humanizing one’s murdered peers would make the experience more terrifying. The soldiers’ “faces were perfectly wooden” (42), but the crowd is an animated, constantly moving mass. The crowd is further dehumanized as people willingly relinquish individual identity; the chanting is “savage and orgiastic” (198).

Religion and Ritual

The motifs of religion and ritual reinforce the theme of Coming of Age in a Dystopian World. The Walkers trust in a system that doesn’t care about them, and they place their faith in a terrifying authority figure who has the power to destroy them. Twice, Stephen King creates a parallel between God and Mammon (the Biblical word for money). Garraty “reflected how strange it was about the Major, who had gone from God to Mammon in just ten hours” (63). The crowd is likewise an essential part of this system: “Only Crowd, a creature with no body, no head, no mind. Crowd was nothing but a Voice and an Eye, and it was not surprising that Crowd was both God and Mammon […] to be made sacrifice unto” (251). Both the Major and the crowd have the same kind of terrifying power as the God of the Old Testament, promising destruction.

Several Biblical allusions reinforce the Walk’s sense of uncompromising authority and the boys’ sense of powerlessness. As Garraty tries to walk quickly away from the site of a murder, “he thought about Lot’s wife, who had looked back and turned into a pillar of salt” (69). In moments of panic, McVries and Tubbins both go on religious rants. McVries shouts, “We’re walking on the Lord, and back there flies are crawling on the Lord” (135), while Tubbins claims, “The whore of Babylon has come among us!” (276).

Biblical images contribute to the Major’s sense of power, reinforcing that the Walkers are pawns to be sacrificed. When Garraty collapses, he reflects that the other boys are “leaving him alone, like a sacrificial offering” (100). Olson dies “like a man nailed to a cross” (201). Stebbins recalls witnessing two finalists competing for the finish line: “It was like they didn’t even know the crowd was there […] They were hobbling along, both of them. Like they had been crucified and then taken down and made to walk with the nails still through their feet” (77). In stark contrast to these images of boys being sacrificed, the Major only gains power: “A great overhead airburst traced the Major’s face in fire, making Garraty think numbly of God” (288). For the Walkers, part of growing up entails dispelling the notion that they’ll be protected or that they’re entitled to any kind of goodness; they’re thrust into a harsh system that they can’t control.

Money and Capitalism

The motifs of money and capitalism reinforce the theme of Resisting Oppression. The boys are motivated to participate in the Walk in hope of winning the Prize (an unspecified sum of money). For them, capitalism can be either an ending or a beginning.

Poverty is clearly a great motivator for participating, and as the boys compare their experiences of home life, most of them recount their desire for social mobility and their reliance on dead-end jobs with no end in sight. Even the often-repeated euphemism for death, “he bought a ticket,” reflects ingrained capitalism; the Walkers have accepted this and don’t question it. McVries describes his frustration with his ex-girlfriend, Priscilla, with whom he moved to New Jersey to work in a pajama factory. He resented that she was more successful at work than he was, and as she realized that she could gain agency through employment, she became less reliant on her boyfriend. He describes her as “a slave to her fucking buttons” (165), clearly jealous that she achieved capitalistic success. This also compromised his sense of masculinity; he despised that she could be financially independent without him.

As they all literally march toward their death, the boys reflect on money’s potential to change their lives. Garraty views death as an equalizer: “Potato soup or sirloin tips, a mansion or a hovel, once you’re dead that’s it, they put you on a cooling board like Zuck or Ewing and that’s it” (52). Stebbins believes that winning the Prize will elevate him to the status of a legitimate child in the eyes of his father (the Major).

In addition, the Walk conveys the relationship between capitalism and the environment. Much of the Walk passes through old mill towns whose inhabitants have departed or sunk into poverty. As the boys pass “a huge, soot-blackened building on a dirty river” (60), it becomes clear that in this dystopian version of America, the pursuit of progress has taken a substantial toll on the environment.