Essay 'The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner'

Many of the short stories in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner portray the worst possible outcome for many of the characters. They are attempting to help the readers reform themselves by showing us cases of where people went wrong. This idea is evident in this quote from a poem by Thomas Hardy: ' 'If a way to the batter there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.” This quote is saying that in order to make ourselves better we must examine the “worst” first. This is what these stories are trying to do by showing us people making an absolute mess of their situation. The “worst” can be many different things, and there are a few example from the stories. Some examples are people using violence or theft to deal with their problems, or just not being in the right mind during a situation where you should clearly be doing and thinking something else. These things are all evident in many of the stories in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner collection of stories.
People resorting to violence can be seen in “The Match” and “The Decline of Frankie Buller.” In “The Match” Lennox gets mad after his team loses their soccer match. When he gets home he gets

One other way that the “worst” can be depicted is through theft. In the story “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” Smith uses theft to obtain money. His family is a poor family and they do not have a lot of luxuries, so when after his father died and they get a check from the factory is he worked at they immediately use the money to buy a television. When the money runs out Smith again resorts back to theft. This is a situation of a family who could easily work hard and get a job to support themselves but instead take what to them is the easy route and steal things. There are many people in the world who are in a very similar situation to Smith’s family who have the choice whether to work hard the right way or to steal, and maybe by seeing the way Smith turned out that will alter people’s