The Long Walk by Stephen King
"The Long Walk" is a dystopian narrative set in a future United States where a military regime enforces a brutal contest involving a hundred young men. These participants, chosen by lottery, embark on a harrowing journey from Maine, aiming to reach Massachusetts while maintaining a pace of four miles per hour. The stakes are high: those who fail to keep up are warned three times before facing execution. The protagonist, Ray Garraty, is uncertain about his motivations for participating, having joined friends in the lottery. As the competition progresses over five tense days, Garraty grapples with the harsh realities of fatigue, loss, and the psychological strains of survival, forming bonds with fellow competitors even as they face grim eliminations. The presence of the Major, a symbolic figure representing the oppressive regime, looms over the event, embodying the authoritarian control exerted over the competitors. Ultimately, the conclusion of the walk raises profound questions about victory and the true cost of survival in a repressive society, leaving Garraty to confront an uncertain future beyond the contest.
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Subject Terms
The Long Walk
Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman
First published: 1979
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Fantasy—dystopia
Time of work: An indefinite time in the future
Locale: Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts
The Plot
The Long Walk has become a favorite sporting spectacle in the United States at an undefined future time. Military extremists have taken over the country, and the Long Walk is their version of a heroic exercise. The Long Walk is a contest involving one hundred young men, chosen by lottery from the thousands who apply to participate. They assemble in Maine on May 1 and begin walking south from Maine into New Hampshire, then, if luck and strength hold out, into Massachusetts. The winner of the Long Walk has his every wish granted. Walkers must maintain a speed of four miles per hour. As they falter and drop below the requisite speed, they are given three warnings; upon the fourth violation, they are shot.
Ray Garraty shows up to participate, not completely sure why he is there. His friends had applied for the lottery, and he had joined them, certain that he would not be selected. Others in the contest have high hopes for themselves, but the soldiers accompanying the walkers soon begin to decimate their ranks. During the five-day period of the event, during which the walkers are not allowed to stop or rest for any purpose, Garraty makes friends with many of the walkers and makes enemies of some. He yearns for his girlfriend, Jan, and at times walks only with the stated purpose of seeing her. As the walk proceeds, Jan fades in his mind, as do his mother and all other aspects of his previous reality. Staying alive becomes his only concern.
The true enemies of the walkers become fatigue and luck. One walker is eliminated when he develops pneumonia and cannot go on. Others snap under the pressures of fatigue and the horror of the killing of their fellow walkers. The bonds among the walkers grow until the loss of each becomes personal to the remainder. As the walk grows closer to the end, the death of each walker resonates more strongly to each survivor.
The walk is presided over by the Major, a figure who is almost mythical but who shows up regularly during the event. The Major is present at the beginning of the walk, appears to salute the walkers during their ordeal, and is there to greet the winner at the end. The Major embodies the “spit and polish” military image, but he is much more, symbolically, in this book. He is the representative of the repressive regime that has taken over the country. The regime is supported by the Squads, military groups who remove those who might oppose the reigning powers. Garraty’s father has been “Squaded”—taken off by the Squads, never to be seen again. If not a major player in the novel’s action, the Major is one who looms so large in the book’s structure as to prefigure its development. One of the walkers, the one who seems destined to win the race, says that the Major is his father. Although there is no way to know whether this is true, readers are given little reason to doubt it.
When Garraty wins the walk, there is no sense of release and less reason to think there is any true victory. Garraty looks past the Major, who greets him at the end of the journey, to a “dark man” who beckons him to an unspecified, unimaginable destiny.
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