The Long Walk and What It All Means

(This article contains spoilers for The Long Walk by Stephen King. This analysis is based solely on the book and does not take the movie into account.)

The Long Walk by Stephen King is perhaps the bleakest and most heartbreaking narrative I've ever read – and I loved every second of it. The premise is simple yet striking: 100 boys must walk and keep

walking at a minimum pace of four miles per hour and if they fall below or stop, they are warned. Go past three warnings and they are shot dead. The Walk continues until only one boy is left and the winner receives the Prize – anything he desires for the rest of his life. Despite the novel consisting of one long, continuous scene of walking, this 300+ pages novel is never boring. Each scene drips with suspense, dread, and small moments of humanity amidst the horrors. But upon reaching the end, I was left pondering one question: what was the point? Well, the point is that this novel is layered, and it only gets more complex the more I unpack it. It is a jigsaw puzzle of a novel, one that I am determined to solve. And to do so, I must attempt to answer every question I asked whilst reading this book.

Question 1: Why are there no women in the Walk?

Though not a particularly important question, I still asked it, nonetheless. Does King think women aren't physically capable of competing? Does the dystopian America portrayed in this novel not believe women capable? Or are women simply too sensible to ever consider signing up to their deaths? Regardless of the reason, all I wanted was for the book to acknowledge the question and answer it.

The book did not – at least, not openly. The invisible answer lay in the silent themes that progressed over the course of the narrative. The main character, Ray Garraty, and his closest buddy in the Walk, Pete McVries, both seem to be dealing with a masculinity complex, questioning their sexualities and their capabilities as ‘real men’. This, paired with the heavy military presence in the narrative puts masculinity – and its capacity for violence – into sharp focus.

To include women in the Walk would muddy the waters of an intentional thematic choice that was really worth exploring. This thematic choice is further reinforced by the answer to one of my later questions.

But there is one more question regarding masculinity in The Long Walk that must be asked – does participating in the Walk and showing off their strength, their fortitude and their prowess as ‘real men’ improve their lives in the end? I think it’s safe to say the answer is no.

Question 2: What do the boys want the Prize for?

What struck me as most odd about the main characters in this novel was their lack of motivation. While a few of the boys express interest in the monetary part of the Prize and the promise of helping their loved ones, the main group (known as the Musketeers) aren’t particularly interested in the grand Prize, other than jokingly requesting a fancy coffin or plastic feet. McVries signed up to the Walk after a bad breakup with his girlfriend that left him with extreme insecurity regarding his ‘manliness’. Garraty too reflects on past memories that question his sexuality and masculinity, as well as recalling memories of his late father, who was outspoken in his hatred of the Walk. These recollections gave me a vague idea of Garraty’s inner identity, but not enough for me to truly understand why he had joined the Walk – I suspect because Garraty himself does not truly understand either.

Why then do these boys naively sign up to risk their lives for this Prize if they don't really want it? The mysteriously cryptic character of Stebbins is the first to answer this question. ‘We want to die, that’s why we’re doing it. Why else, Garraty? Why else?’ (pg. 180, Kindle edition). The Prize, it seems, was never the motivator. The only desire is a death wish. Even after winning, Garraty continues on, following after a hallucination up ahead, before breaking out into a run. The Walk never really ends, not after his mind and body have been destroyed in the process. As Garraty explains on page 328 (Kindle edition), a past year’s winner ‘haemorrhaged in one eye and finished the Walk half-blind. It turned out he had a blood clot on his brain. He died a week or so after the Walk.’ And for the unnamed Walker in question, death must have been a relief. The boys enter the Walk expecting to die. By the end of it, they want nothing else.

Question 3: Why do the boys sign up, knowing the consequences?

In part, it comes down to the human inability to grasp the consequences of our own mortality until it’s too late. But the real reason for the boys joining the Walk, lies in historical context. James Smythe wrote in a 2012 article in The Guardian that elements of the novel mirrored the real-life conflict of the Vietnam War: ‘the televised draft, the horror of seeing new friends die, the seeming lack of reason for it occurring in the first place.’ The Long Walk was the first novel Stephen King wrote, beginning it in 1966, at 18 years of age, while the war was still ongoing.

Knowing this now, how does this context change my perception of the novel? Why would these young boys willingly sign their lives away? Well, why does any young man sign up for military service, all the while knowing how that career might end? Perhaps it is the country’s insistence that men act like ‘real men’, or on the promise of adventure and comradery. McVries makes this connection ever so loosely when he recalls his family dropping him off at the beginning of the Walk, his four-year-old sister Katrina with him. ‘I think Katrina was the only one who really understood. She kept saying “Petie’s going on an adventure.”’ (page 307, Kindle edition).

At the time I read this, I didn't understand, but the lens of war brought it all into perspective. The boys are like soldiers, embarking on their big adventure from Maine to Massachusetts, marching into a war they can never win. Because no one ever wins the Walk. To win is to be the only survivor, living with shellshock, forever haunted by the friends they left behind.

Question 4: Why does the Walk exist?

The novel itself never openly answers this question, rather it implies that the Walk is a national sport. Entertainment. The Long Walk takes place in an alternate America, evidenced by casual references such as April 31st, fifty-one states and the German air-blitz of the American East Coast. The US appears to be under complete military control, a totalitarian regime not unlike those we've seen in other fictional works, the likes of 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. Far less world building is given in The Long Walk as the narrative focuses on the small world of Ray Garraty, instead of the larger national issues.

The most that I can glean about the Walk is that it exists for the same purpose as the Hunger Games – it is a spectacle, one the public cheer and drool over from the safety of the sidelines, uncomprehending of the true horrors before their eyes. Human depravity is on full display and the amorphous Crowd laps it up. Outspoken criticism of the Long Walk leads to being ‘Squaded’ – implied to mean taken by soldiers and later executed – which is what happened to Garraty’s father. Complicity is the key to survival.

The boys begin their Walk with optimism and energy, but over the course of the long journey, find themselves despising the soldiers. Several rebellion attempts are made – blowing raspberries at the colour guard after a four-hundred-gun salute, running towards the half-track, stealing one of the rifles and shooting a soldier. Each attempt is unsuccessful, further draining the boys of hope. Any and all resistance is futile and in fact, only further serves the regime, increasing the spectacle for the public. Even in death, the boys fulfil their service to the national sport, further enabling the military's iron-clad control.

This sentiment greatly mirrors the bleak ending of 1984 – the stark reminder that in a true totalitarian regime, there are no heroes, there are no rebels, there is only control and an inevitable submission. The Squads didn’t need a real reason for the Walk to exist. They just needed a Prize to offer – something so good, people were willing to die for it – and then they sat back and watched as the fools came rushing in, ready to die in the national circus and facilitate the Squads position of power. And as the nation fell in love with the sport, picking their favourite competitors, showing their support and benefitting from their proximity to the Walk, the circus cemented itself as just another cog in the machine, a vital part of a system designed to wear down dissenters until no hope remains.

Having reached the end of my musings, I think it is safe to conclude that The Long Walk is an anti-war novel. Though it may have been inspired by the Vietnam War, its message seems to apply across many moments in history, even today. While it could be compared to other novels in the dystopian genre, I find myself comparing it to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, another novel that stuck with me more than I had expected it to. That novel’s gruesome and honest portrayal of a German soldier in WWI was intended as a sort of counterpoint to the war propaganda encouraging young men to sign up for military service. Only when the truth is laid bare can we decide for ourselves what we are willing to submit ourselves to, and I think The Long Walk also does a brilliant job of revealing the repulsive reality of war and the traumatic effects of its aftermath.

The Long Walk is disturbing, tense, and downright horrific, but that’s the whole point. War, corruption, and totalitarian control are all of those things and pretending otherwise is the most dangerous thing we can do. True dystopian narratives don’t sugarcoat, and neither does Stephen King. The Long Walk will haunt me long after I put the book down and honestly, I’m so grateful for that.