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Will's Emotions In 'Long Way Down'

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Grey Davis Mrs. Munger Honors English 10 5 May 2023 Long Way Down Essay Long Way Down has several awards including The Walter Dean Award, Newbery Honor Book Award, Michaell Printz Award, and The Coretta Scott King Award. Will’s brother, Shawn was killed and Will is seeking revenge. Will feels the need to follow “The Rules”. When he plans to get revenge, he goes into an elevator and his decision is quickly altered. In Long Way Down emotions affect the way that Will, Buck, and Frick all make decisions. Will’s emotions are affected by his brother dying, and also trying to get revenge. “ NO.3: Revenge/ If someone you love/ gets killed,/ find the person/ who killed / them and/ kill them.” (Reynolds 33). Revenge is one of the “unwritten rules” in the urban area that the story takes place in. Will believes he must follow the rule of revenge to not be looked down upon by his community. “They weren’t meant to be broken./ They were meant for the broken/ to follow.” (Reynolds 35). Will explains how “The Rules” were not meant to be broken, but for the broken-hearted to follow them. Will’s emotions led him to considering making poor choices. …show more content…

“But you ain’t got it in you, Will/ he said/ cocky/ your brother did, but you-/ you don’t.”(Reynolds 101). Buck is either seriously telling Will that he can not do it. Or he is once again still trying to convince Will not to do anything out of line. “You don’t got it in you/ he repeated/ over and over again/ under his breath/ while sliding a pack/ of cigarettes from/ his pocket.” (Reynolds 106). Buck is still trying to convince Will to not make dumb choices. Buck does not want Will to get hurt or worse end up like his brother Shawn, dead. Buck is trying to embarass Will to stop him from trying to kill Riggs, supposedly the man who killed Shawn, but they really have no

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I think about guilt when I hear this, for example if you steal something from your parents. The guilt you might feel after the fact would eat you alive until it’s unbearable. In Will’s dad situation it would be way more intense than taking twenty dollars from a parent, because he stole someone's life away. This could have told Will that if he goes through with his plan, he could end up feeling so guilty it would eat him alive as well. Another convincing thing Will’s Dads said was this, “I didn’t know he wasn’t the right guy, Pop said a tremble in his throat.

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Buck was like a father figure to Shawn. He taught Shawn the rules. Although, these rules were also the reason Buck was killed and is now only a ghost. As Will conversed with Buck he discovers that Buck was the one who gave Shawn that gun and that it’s missing a bullet. This means Shawn had used this bullet on someone for revenge.

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Emotions play a large role in this community; especially, Uncle Mark, Mikey, and Will in Long Way Down. Will’s dad let emotion take over his thoughts and decision before he killed the wrong guy. “UNCLE MARK AND MY FATHER/ looked at me with hollow eyes/ dancing somewhere between\ guilt and grief/ which I couldn’t make sense of\ until my father admitted/ that he had killed/ the wrong guy”. (Reynolds 218) Will’s dad, Mikey, allowed the hurt he felt to control his decision of killing who he thought shot his brother.

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But you ain’t/ got it in you, Will,/ … Your brother did, but you-/ you don’t” (Reynolds 101). Buck’s intent was to prove that Will and Shawn are completely different in the aspect that Will isn’t capable of killing another man because he doesn’t want to have to follow The Rules, especially at such a young age. Reynolds continues with the theme of escaping the path of violence as he introduces more characters that get on the elevator with Will, one in particular, Uncle Mark. Uncle Mark approaches Will's situation by saying, “I mean, let’s play it out,/ how this whole thing is gon’/ go down.

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