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Analyzing Jason Reynolds's 'Long Way Down'

1066 Words5 Pages

Ryder Adams
Mrs. Holliday
H English 10
4/6/2023
Anagrams, Hallucinating, and Poems

The novel Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds is a story about the life experiences of a young man, Will, as a teenager in the hood. He is determined to get revenge for his brother, who was murdered. This novel tells the story of his experience finding out his brother was murdered and then going to avenge him. The Long Way Down is an excellent read, in my opinion, due to its poetic composition and descriptive, minute-long format.
The entire book was written in poem form, stanza by stanza, giving the reader a quick experience. The entire book happens during a minute-long elevator ride for Will. This book is filled with literary devices such as poetic style, the …show more content…

It is evident that Will has gone through some tough times, and he is going to ameliorate the pain he feels by getting revenge for the murder of his brother. But as the elevator changes from floor to floor, a new character is introduced. Each character means something to Will but is now dead. In the book, on page 304, it states, “I caught my breath as Buck, Dani, Uncle Mark, Pop, Frick, and Shawn chased behind it. The L button no longer lit”(Reynolds, 304). Every floor that the elevator stopped at introduced a new character. All of the characters were telling their story of how they died, and telling him it is not worth going through and committing murder. This is because they all know that he will end up in the same place they all ended up, dead due to the cycles of violence in the hood. According to study.com, “The mystical element of the ghosts is used to give shape and power to Will's thought process during what would otherwise be an uninteresting elevator ride.” The use of people in the form of ghosts shows that Will is starting to learn that the cycle of violence in the hood will catch up to him. Everyone that showed up was encroaching on his drive for revenge for Shawn's death, whether it was Buck saying he didn’t have the audacity to do it, or Dani asking him why he would do that. Overall, all of these ghosts of essential people to Will show that he is hallucinating and learning the ramifications of getting revenge and that he does not need to fall victim to the cycles of

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