Quote from Chapter 11

I thought it was important when Ray was thinking to himself and said, "And it was not even the pain that was the worst. It was the death, the constant death, the stink of carrion that had settled into his nostrils" (260). I thinks that's what makes the Long Walk so bad. Even though their feet really hurt and they're tired, they can push through that, but having to watch their friends get shot is much worse. It messes up their minds and has a huge effect on them for the rest of the walk. I think even the one person who wins will still be scarred from having to watch 99 people get killed. Since the author usually just says "the guns roared again" when somebody is shot and he doesn't describe most of the deaths in detail, I think its easy to forget exactly what the kids have to watch happen over and over again, so this reminded me that physical pain isn't all that the walkers are going through.

Ray and Jan

As the book progresses, we are learning more about Ray's girlfriend back home, Jan. Although he thinks about her a lot during the Long Walk, it's hard for me to figure out how he actually feels about her. In the very beginning of the Walk, Ray passes a teenage girl holding a sign for him. He runs up to her and starts making out with her. He spends a fair amount of time feeling her up and even gets himself a warning. His actions would make it seem like he is not very serious about Jan. But he constantly revisits old memories with her and thinks about how much he misses her.

In chapter 6, Ray "thought about Jan. He needed her. I love you, Jan, he thought. He wasn't dumb, and he knew she had become more to him than she actually was. She had turned into a life-symbol. A shield against the sudden death that came from the halftrack" (207).

Sorry for the long quote but I felt as if it was fairly significant. Although he claims to love Jan, I don't think that's the case. I think he longs for simpler times and regrets volunteering for the Walk now that he realizes the harsh reality of it. And remembering times with Jan reminds him of life before the Walk and how much simpler things were. He describes her as a "life-symbol." I'm not sure what that means. But I think he loves the memories of her, especially in comparison to the current situation he is in now. And although he thinks about Jan more and more throughout the book, I don't believe he loves her.

Chapter 10 Question

It was clear a long time ago that Hank Olson wasn't going to be able to make it much further in the walk. He was often described as a robot, whose mind somehow forced him to keep going to avoid death, even though his body had given out. In chapter 10, Olson finally died in what I thought was the most gruesome death yet. He somehow forced himself to keep walking with his guts falling out after he had been shot in the stomach before he eventually died. 
Before Olson dies, he screams, "I DID IT WRONG!" (248). I was confused as to what he meant by this. Do you know what he was talking about when he said he did it wrong?

Chapter 8-9

Throughout the book, I've been confused as to why the kids in the Long Walk chose to sign up. They'd all seen the walk before on TV, so they know how grueling it is and how likely they are to be killed. When the kids talk about why they signed up to be in the walk, many of them say that they don't know why they're doing it and they can't think of a reason. Even Garraty claimed that he "sure didn't know what he was doing" being in the walk, he simply told Jan that he "had to" (211). 
In chapter 9, the prize is revealed to be that the winner gets anything his heart desires, so I'm sure some of the kids entered themselves in the walk in hopes of winning that. But with such poor odds of winning, it still seems strange to me that so many kids actually want to participate in the walk.
McVries claims that they all secretly want to die and that's the real reason that the kids sign up for the walk. He states, "We're all crazy or we wouldn't be here. I thought we'd thrashed that out a long time ago. We want to die, Ray, haven't you got that through your sick, thick head yet? Look at Olson. A skull on top of a stick. Tell me he dosen't want to die. You can't. Second place? Its bad enough that even one of us has got to get gypped out of what he really wants" (214). I'm not sure if he meant this literally or not, and while there's a possibility that he's right, I don't think I agree with him. I think there are definitely some contestants, like Scramm and Garraty, who do not want to die. Besides, if these kids truly wanted to die, why would they walk more than 100 miles before getting their ticket and getting shot? What did you make of McVries comment?

Chapter 7: Character Analysis of Scramm

In chapter 7 we are introduced to the high school dropout, Scramm. He is overly confident and even eager to continue walking, which I can't understand. He tells Ray, "I wanted to be in the Long Walk ever since I was old enough to want anything" (210). Scramm's enthusiasm is shocking and disturbing to me. What makes it harder to understand is that he volunteered to walk in spite of his pregnant wife at home. Maybe he hopes to win the Long Walk and use his reward to support his family. He tells the other guys about his plans after he wins, sending his son to college and building houses in Maine. When someone asks what he'll do if he doesn't win, he tells them that it won't happen and that he will definitely win. I'm not sure what to make of Scramm yet since we don't know much about him. However, I can conclude that he is an idiot for leaving his pregnant wife to volunteer for such a suicidal event. Although Ray volunteered too, he doesn't seem to have people relying on his return. Reading this book is giving me secondhand anxiety so I'm not sure how characters like Scramm could be so nonchalant about his possible (and likely) fate of being shot to death. I don't think Scramm will win and I don't even think he'll come close because the overly confident ones always end up seeing how wrong they were.

Chapter 7

In chapter 7, the narrator talks a lot about Garraty's father and how he was taken away by the soldiers. I thought this was interesting because it was one of the first instances that the author revealed something about the society outside of the walk. The narrator revealed that when Garraty was a kid, the soldiers had come to his house and taken away his father. Its been 11 years since, and Garraty has still not seen his Dad. The author never exactly says what his father was taken for, but he alludes to it. It states that, "It would have been good living if Jim Garraty could have kept his politics to himself" (171). Additionally, it says that "Jim Garraty had not been much of a Long Walk booster" (171). I think this means that Garraty's father was speaking out against the Long Walk and was punished for it. It reveals that The Long Walk takes place in some sort of totalitarian society where people aren't allowed to speak their mind and say things against the Government without being punished. I'm wondering if Garraty will follow in his father's path and rebel against the Long Walk too later in the story.

Chapter 6

In this chapter, Ray reveals that the guys have only been walking for 20 hours or so. In this amount of time, they have walked 80 miles without sleeping or even taking a single break to rest (201). I know this is fiction but it shocked me that they had walked such a distance in this short amount of time and only 27 of the 100 guys have died.

I looked up how much the average, healthy person can walk in a day. According to About Health, a healthy person with no training should not exceed 7 miles in a day. The average person will start to get painful blisters after 10-12 miles.

I also looked into what happens if you don't sleep for a day. Everday Health claims that after 24 hours, people really start to suffer from lack of sleep. Their judgement is affected, memory is impaired, bad decision making, and poor coordination. In addition, people become more emotional, can't pay attention, and have impaired hearing. The guys are all starting to show symptoms of lack of sleep. Some manage to sleep (sort of) while walking, but it isn't enough to sustain a human for long. Ray mentions feeling distant from the other guys and at one point he doesn't realize where he is and worries that he got lost from the group.

The remaining guys in the walk are growing dangerously tired and I am interested to see what happens next. But the combination of excessive walking and no sleep seems like fatal combo that won't end well.