I recently finished Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, and it was absolutely fantastic in more ways than one. No word is wasted in this book, and one thing it does brilliantly is symbolism.
Warning: major spoilers. I will be spoiling almost everything in this book as I analyse it, so I would highly recommend reading it first before continuing.
Additionally, my opinions may not align with yours and that’s cool, too. This is just how I interpreted the book.
Without further ado, let’s dive in. It is a bit of a long post, so in Buck’s words, “Might as well relax…it’s a long way down” (p.97).
Long Way Down — Jason Reynolds
An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds’s fiercely stunning novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.
A cannon. A strap.
A piece. A biscuit.
A burner. A heater.
A chopper. A gat.
A hammer
A tool
for RULE
Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he?
As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator?
Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.
And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.
Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.
Themes
First, we’re going to start off by breaking down the themes that I drew from Long Way Down. We’re doing this so that we can link the symbols back later.
CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
The cycle of violence is the strongest theme that Reynolds’ book explores. An unbroken chain that “gets passed down” and “inherited” (p.27), it weighs down heavily on Will, who has been heavily affected by it and has to decide whether or not to further it himself.
This is linked to The Rules, which have been passed down for so long that Will can’t even name who came up with them in the first place — “The Rules have always ruled. Past present future forever” (p.174). They are simple, as the blurb explains: No crying. No snitching. Revenge. Yet every act of revenge only leads to another, thus furthering the cycle of violence, and Long Way Down does a fantastic job of hammering this idea in.
TRUTH
Long Way Down also explores the concept of truth. The book opens with, “Don’t nobody believe nothing these days” (p.1) as Will tries to convince the reader that the events in the book actually happened. This sets the tone for the story, which requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, given that Will’s journey happens over a single minute and contains A Christmas Carol type interactions with ghosts.
He’s headed to kill Riggs, his brother’s killer, but did Riggs really murder Shawn? The header on page 55 reads “Reasons I thought (knew) Riggs killed Shawn”. Will’s determined to believe that he can pinpoint the blame on Riggs, but deep down, he’s not sure if this belief is truth, as implied with the brackets (parentheses?) around ‘knew’. Over the course of the story, Will’s interaction with the other characters continues to place doubt on the assumption that Riggs shot Shawn.
CONNECTION
Due to the nature of the cycle of violence, many of the ghosts’ stories are intertwined. Will and Shawn are connected by blood, but many of the others’ tales are linked in the too-long chain of who-shot-who and the need to follow The Rules. Long Way Down explores the various connections that come forth from the cycle of violence and shows how following Rule #3, revenge, only results in more loss and bloodshed.
Symbols
I found a number of recurring symbols that either represented an idea and/or added to the book’s themes. The ones that I want to highlight are the middle drawer, the nighttime, and Will’s use of anagrams.
THE MIDDLE DRAWER
The middle drawer is on Shawn’s side of the brothers’ bedroom. It’s the “only thing ever out of place on Shawn’s side” (p.38) and it’s where Will finds Shawn’s gun. Will takes its “off-centeredness” as “a sign… to set things straight” (p.48). While Will sees it as a signal to follow Rule #3, its awkwardness actually serves to draw attention to the wrongness of tracking Riggs down and killing him to avenge Shawn. It represents Will’s growing discomfort as he tries to prepare himself to kill Riggs and quite possibly the immorality of using murder to solve problems.
THE NIGHTTIME
The nighttime was a recurring idea that really intrigued me. It’s not made clear exactly what it is, but it’s said that “it’ll snatch your teaching from you, put a gun in your hand, a grumble in your gut, and some sharp in your teeth” (p.249). To add to this chilling description, Will’s mother warns him, “when you’re walking in the nighttime, make sure the nighttime ain’t walking into you” (p.40). It’s heavily implied that the nighttime is a metaphor for the collection of dark emotions that can overcome a person after someone they love has been killed. It represents the accumulation of hate, anger, and hurt, which can push someone into doing something that they might later regret.
ANAGRAMS
Finally, I found Will’s fascination with anagrams interesting, especially since there are five (maybe six) anagrams scattered across the book. Will’s interest in anagrams may be because they remind him of his bond with Shawn — “same letters, different words, somehow still make sense together, like brothers” (p.37).
This links back to the book’s theme of connection. Anagrams are how Will finds connections within what he knows. The first anagram we are introduced to has been hastily scribbled on his wall, reading: “SCARE=CARES” (p.36). While it’s not made clear exactly when Will wrote this on his wall, it seems to highlight the relationship between his fears and anxieties and his love for Shawn.
As he journeys to the ground floor, Will continues to make anagrams up until he meets the penultimate ghost: Frick. When Frick discloses his story — how he was killed — Will thinks, “I wish I knew an anagram for POSER” (p.276). This is the last anagram that he makes in the book and really demonstrates how much his encounter with Frick changes things. Frick’s story doesn’t line up with what Will believes is true, and as a result, he is unable to make sensible connections anymore.. Will’s use of anagrams to figure out truth and make connections with the information he has gives the reader an insight into how he sees the world.
Symbolism and theme exploration within the characters
The ghosts in the elevator are definitely one of the highlights in Long Way Down. All of the characters that Will meets are victims of gun violence and each of them adds depth to the themes and the story. Interestingly, each of the six ghosts asks Will a question that pushes him to reconsider killing Riggs. Here, I’ll be quickly analyzing each character and what they bring to the elevator.
7. BUCK // “So what you ’bout to do?”
The first character that Will encounters is Buck, “the only big brother Shawn had ever had” (p.86) and the one who “taught [Shawn] The Rules” (p.93). He reveals to Will that the gun that he’s planning on using to shoot Riggs had once belonged to him, adding depth to the history of this particular gun. After Will tells Buck about Shawn’s death, Buck responds: “So what you ’bout to do?” (p.94). When Will answers, Buck says, “you ain’t got it in you” (p.101). Just as Buck started the cycle of violence in Shawn by teaching him The Rules, he starts doubt within Will. His question gets Will to begin reevaluating his decisions, but his confident “you ain’t got it in you” is what truly hits Will. Buck represents the beginnings of doubt in Will.
6. DANI // “What if you miss?”
All of the ghosts in the elevator are interesting in their own way, but the second person who enters the elevator, Dani, is especially fascinating to me. And that’s not just because she’s the only female ghost. Will doesn’t recognize her at first because the ghost he sees is older than he remembers — Dani was Will’s childhood friend. She had been shot and killed at the age of eight. And because of her youth, many of the words used around her have connotations of innocence and childhood: “playground” (p.124), “sunshine” (p.127), and “flower dress” (p.127).
When Dani was killed, Will remembers seeing her with “her mouth, open. Bubble gum and blood” (p.133). Not only is this a disturbing image that really nails home the actual death of a child, this is a turning point for Will. After Dani’s death, Shawn begins to teach him The Rules. Dani represents Will’s loss of innocence, and it is her death that marks the true loss of his childhood. She adds to his growing doubt by asking him, “What if you miss?” (p.142), a possibility that Will hadn’t really considered before. Dani is the reminder of Will’s childhood and the seed for the cycle of violence to begin in him. It is Will’s encounter with her that is the beginning of the seed’s uprooting.
5. UNCLE MARK // “Why are you here?”
Next up is Uncle Mark. He asks Will, “Why are you here?” (p.167). When Will tells him about Shawn’s murder, Uncle Mark encourages him to imagine what he’ll do once he gets off the elevator and “play it out like a movie” (p.175). This is important because when Will plays along, he realizes he can’t imagine shooting Riggs. Even the thought of shooting hurts him, which brings us back to Buck’s “you ain’t got it in you” (p.101). Uncle Mark brings self-reflection to the table and forces Will to ask himself if he is capable of murder.
Uncle Mark’s parting words are chilling. He asks Will what happens after he shoots Riggs, to which Will replies, “that’s it. The end” (p.194). Uncle Mark quietly corrects him: “it’s never the end” (p.194), coming back to the cycle of violence and the consequences of following The Rules. If everyone followed The Rules, there would be no end to the bloodshed. The cycle of violence would continue to carry on. This is an implicit question to Will — does he want to add to this unbroken chain? Or does he choose to break The Rules and stop the cycle of violence?
4. MIKEY // “What you think you should do?”
The fourth ghost who steps into the elevator is Mikey, Will’s dad. He was “killed for killing the man who killed [Uncle Mark]” (p.203). He asks, “what you think you should do?” (p.210). Then he begins to tell Will how he really died, and in doing so, unpacks a number of important elements.
The first thing that Mikey brings is guilt. After carrying out his revenge on his brother’s killer, he had no peace. He tells Will that he “couldn’t kiss [Will’s] mother, couldn’t kiss [his] boys good night” (p.216). Getting revenge solved nothing. This gets both the reader and Will to question if Riggs’ death really is the right answer.
The next important thing in Mikey’s story is a link to the theme of truth. Mikey “had killed the wrong guy” (p.218). He’d shot the guy because his brother’s death hurt, but he kept shooting because he was “angry” (p.213). The nighttime had wormed its way into him. Mikey believed that he was shooting the right guy, but that was hardly the truth at all and he ended up paying for it with his life.
Finally, Mikey tries to give Will a taste of empathy. Before Will can register it, Mikey pulls Will’s gun from his waistband and “[puts] it to [Will’s] head” (p.224). He shows Will what it’s like to be on the other side of the barrel, what’s it like to be afraid for your life. It’s a terrifying moment for Will and it shows him how he’d feel if he were in Riggs’ place.
So Mikey represents Will if he kills Riggs. If Riggs didn’t actually kill Shawn and Will shoots him anyway, he will go through exactly what his father experienced. First the guilt, then the grief that comes with discovering the truth, and finally death as one of Riggs’ loved ones follows through with The Rules and kills Will. It’s after hearing Mikey’s story that his questions hits harder: “what you think you should do?”
3. FRICK // “Who?”
Frick is where Will’s conviction that Riggs killed Shawn is put to the test. As “the man who murdered [Buck]” (p.244), he explains that he had shot Buck by accident — because he had been scared. When Shawn found out, he “stuck to The Rules” (p.267). This is why one bullet is missing from Will’s gun. Shawn had been able to carry out what Will is preparing to do, and because of this, someone else had killed him.
The person that shot Shawn had to be someone who knew Frick, but when Dani describes Riggs to Frick, he responds, “Who?” (p.275). Frick doesn’t know Riggs, and because of this, he becomes the final attack on Will’s certainty. He challenges what Will believes to be true, and as a result, Will is no longer sure of Riggs’ involvement in Shawn’s death.
2. SHAWN // “You coming?”
The final ghost that steps into the elevator is Shawn himself. (I found this mildly confusing because where I live, the penultimate level is generally called level 1, but here, it’s level 2.) He doesn’t say anything to Will, but actions speak louder than words. Shawn stands there awkwardly like “a middle drawer of a man” (p.291) and says nothing as Will tells him everything.
And then he breaks Rule #1. Shawn begins to “softly [snot] and [hiccup] like a little kid, tears pouring from his eyes” (p.291). There are so many ways to interpret this. It’s possible he’s disappointed in Will for following in his footsteps. It’s possible that he regrets teaching Will The Rules and blames himself. Or perhaps he is trying to show Will that it’s okay to break The Rules. He makes a “painful piercing sound” (p.300), as if he’s mourning, until the elevator finally stops. Time is up, and Will has to make a decision.
As the ghosts file out of the elevator, Shawn turns back and asks, “you coming?” (p.306). This is the final line of the book and quite possibly the most powerful. There’s so much packed within these two simple words. Shawn is the embodiment of Will’s pain, his death the catalyst to why Will is in the elevator in the first place. His presence is the most impactful because he is the person that Will loves most. His question asks Will if he is going to follow through with killing Riggs, and thus follow the ghosts into death when someone comes after Will. Is he going to shoot Riggs, and further the cycle of violence? Reynolds doesn’t explicitly tell us. But after everything that Will’s been through, I find it very hard to believe that Will does go ahead and get revenge on the person who may not even be his brother’s murderer.
Conclusion
In Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds does an amazing job incorporating important themes and powerful messages into a riveting story. His use of symbolism through ideas, objects, and characters to convey his themes adds so much depth to the story, making it even more hard-hitting than it already is. Through this, he is able to deliver a compelling yet intense tale about the cycle of violence and its terrible consequences.
That’s all for now!
Thank you for sticking with me on this extremely long analysis! Tell me if you’ve read Long Way Down and if you have any other thoughts on it. What do you think of the way it tackles the cycle of violence? How do you feel about symbolism in works of fiction, and where else have you seen it done well?
Let me know in the comments below!
Make your mark,
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