Jason Reynolds 'Cycle Of Violence In Long Way Down'

Mohamed Soumah

Mrs. Brown/Mrs. Sigmund

English 8

28 February 2023

Argumentative Essay for Long Way Down The cycle of violence… A cycle that can be broken so easily, but isn’t. Maybe that’ll change in Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. A character named Will would have to make a decision if he wanted to stop the circle of violence in his neighborhood, or get revenge for his dead brother Shawn. Will would stop the circle of violence after interactions with his dead relatives, encouraging him that it’s not the right thing to do and he will only hurt more people. Will realizes the fear and consequence behind rule number three. He also doesn’t want to let anyone down, especially his

This displays how Will would not only ruin an enemies life, but even someone innocent might get involved and the cycle of violence would grow. “Then Dani asked, what if you miss?” (Reynold 142). This is an example of how a different cycle of violence could happen. If will misses, he could imagine how tragically it would be for a young innocent person to lose their life due to someone else’s mistake. Adding on to that, will would double or even triple the circle of violence rate depending on the deciding he makes. Will would bring death upon someone else or even himself if he follows the rules. Knowing that he would shoot Riggs. “The end? He murmured looking back at buck, motioning for a light. It’s never the end,” (Reynolds 192). Uncle mark informed that the cycle of violence would not be broken if will kills Riggs, it would only continue. Will now knows that his action can cause many many deaths. Will would not want to hurt somebody else, nor hurt himself. Will knows what he could do but he also knows what would be the aftermath. This would guilt trip Will if someone else died because of