Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Long Way Down, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loyalty and Revenge
Grief, Fear, and Cycles of Violence
Perspective and Reality
Masculinity and Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
Will has just an instant to put the gun back in his waistband, turn around, and try to look normal before a girl steps into the elevator. The girl is beautiful and looks about Will’s age. She’s wearing a flower dress, light makeup, and perfume that cuts through the cigarette smoke. The girl checks to see that the L button is lit while Will looks her up and down and tries to see up her skirt. When he leans back, however, the gun digs into his back and makes him wince, exposing his attempt for what it is.
When the gun makes it impossible for Will to surreptitiously check out this girl, it more broadly points to the fact that if Will goes through with killing Riggs, he may not have many—or any—opportunities at romance at all. Choosing this violent path could lead to Will’s imprisonment or death, which will deprive him of many other life experiences—even if, in his mind, killing Riggs will somehow catapult him into adulthood.
Themes
The girl turns to Buck and sarcastically says that she didn’t know smoking was legal in elevators. Will is disturbed that the girl might be able to see Buck and wonders if she thinks Will is the one who’s been smoking. Buck makes faces at Will. The girl confirms that she can see the smoke, and points at Buck while fanning her face. The girl says she didn’t know guns were allowed on elevators, either, which makes Will panic. Will doesn’t know how the girl can see Buck, since he thought the man was a figment of his imagination. Now, Will knows this is real. Will is sure the reader must think he’s nuts—maybe he is, but he swears this is true. He fans the smoke and stares at Buck, who leans back and takes a drag of his cigarette; the ash doesn’t fall off the end.
Will reiterates that he’s well aware of how far-fetched his story sounds—he’s still very concerned with how he comes off to others, even to the reader. However, whether or not the ghosts are real doesn’t necessarily matter, since it seems like they’ll offer Will a learning opportunity regardless. Buck’s choice to stand back and silently tease Will reinforces his perception of Will as just an immature kid—one who would much rather flirt than confront ghosts in the elevator.
Themes
The girl touches Will’s hand. Under normal circumstances, Will knows he’d take this opportunity to flirt or act like Shawn. However, Will knows that his impression of Shawn is just Shawn’s impression of Buck. Since Buck’s ghost is in the elevator, Will doesn’t flirt, and he thinks it’s hard to think about killing and kissing at the same time. The girl asks why Will needs “it.” Will tries to act confused, but she clarifies that she means the gun. Will says coolly that that’s not something to ask a stranger, and the girl agrees.
The connection of Shawn’s flirting habits to Buck again shows how mentors influences mentees. It’s more than just the Rules that get passed down: everything, from how one acts like a man to how one flirts, is learned from mentors like Buck and Shawn. Meanwhile, the girl in the elevator can apparently see Buck’s ghost, and seems to know Will has a gun even though it’s hidden in his waistband. This suggests that she, too, is a ghost—even if Will isn’t ready to admit this to himself.
Themes
The girl puts a hand on Will’s shoulder so he can smell her perfume and says she does know Will. Will is excited—he doesn’t want to flirt in front of a ghost, but they won’t be on the elevator forever. Plus, he remembers Shawn saying that if a girl says she knows you, that means she’s been watching you. Will figures that Buck taught Shawn this, and hopes it’s true. Will asks the girl where she knows him. She smiles and says she knows him from the playground monkey bars. Will thinks she’s joking and says he’s not a monkey, but the girl tells him she’s serious. When Will says he’s too old to be at playgrounds, the girl tells Will that she knew him when he was little.
Again, Will clearly wants this girl to be real and alive. He doesn’t want to address the supernatural experience he’s having, especially since it’ll force him to consider difficult questions. Will’s attempts to flirt with the girl show that he truly does want to grow up and have relationships—he doesn’t want to die or go to prison, which are the two mostly likely outcomes if he follows through with shooting Riggs.
Themes
Get the entire Long Way Down LitChart as a printable PDF.
The girl opens her purse, pulls out her wallet, and shows Will a photo the way white people in movies do to show off their kids. The photo is of Will and Dani at eight years old: Will is wearing Shawn’s hand-me-downs: Dani is wearing a flower dress and shorts. In the photo, Dani hangs upside-down on the monkey bars with her tongue out. The sun is in Will’s eyes, but the sun seems to come from Dani’s eyes. The girl in the elevator asks Will if he remembers and snaps her wallet shut. Will says he does, and that it was one of the best and worst days of his life—but he wonders how the girl knew Dani. The girl pauses and asks Will if he remembers that she kissed him.
Will’s willingness to admit that this day was the best and worst day of his life shows that on some level, Will is willing to tap into his emotions and share them with others.
Themes
Will’s eyes go wide and he asks, “Dani?” He realizes this girl is Dani, in the same flower dress from the photo. Her face is older, but still looks much the same as it did back then. Will says he remembers things, but then he can’t continue. Dani finishes his sentence for him and says, “gunshots.” Dani recalls how gunshots came from everywhere, and that her body felt like it was burning. She wanted to jump and swing away to somewhere else, just like they pretended they could do on the monkey bars. Buck quips that he wants to throw up. Will remembers Shawn screaming to get down. Shawn had laid on Will and Dani to protect them, and Will remembers staring at Dani as she died. Her mouth was open and he could see blood.
Will can’t bring himself to say “gunshots”—that is, he’s unable to directly acknowledge how Dani died. Her cause of death is the same as Shawn’s and Buck’s, and the same as what Riggs’s will be if Will follows through with his plan. This suggests that on a subconscious level, Will isn’t actually prepared to kill Riggs. Dani’s death is an incredibly traumatic thing for Will to have witnessed as a child, and in many ways it seems to have catapulted Will forward into a version of maturity that was beyond his years. Trauma, in Will’s community, is what forces young people to grow up.
Themes
Sometimes, Will feels like God is showing off pictures of his children from his wallet—since the world doesn’t want to see the kids, God just puts his pictures away. Will confesses that when he learned Dani was dead, he cried all night. The next morning, Shawn taught him the first Rule: no crying. Will tells the reader that he never felt that way before Dani died. The morning after Shawn taught Will the first Rule, Will stood in the shower and felt like he wanted to scratch his skin off or punch something so that there could be a hole in something else. He offers the anagram “feel=flee.”
Here, Will makes it very clear that there’s no option in his world but to ignore his emotions and turn them into something else: violence. His anagram, which equates feeling with running away, suggests that this is Will’s option if he’s not allowed to cry. He can’t outwardly express himself except through violence, rather than through tears or healthy communication.
Themes
Will awkwardly tells Dani that it’s good to see her, which he means wholeheartedly. He thinks that she would’ve grown up gorgeous had she lived. With a grin, Dani says it’s good to see Will too, but he still hasn’t answered her: why does he need a gun? Will’s face hardens as he tells her Shawn was killed. When Dani asks who did it, Will snaps that Dani should know, but Dani asks Will to tell her himself anyway. Will says he thinks Carlson Riggs of the Dark Suns did it—it had to be him.
Will insists that Carlson Riggs must have killed Shawn, but he doesn’t provide any evidence or reasoning as to why he thinks so. It’s clear, then, that Will is basing his claim on a gut feeling that may or may not align with reality. Dani’s question is confrontational enough to suggest that she doesn’t think Will should avenge Shawn’s death at all, which is also why she refuses to tell him who really did kill Shawn.
Themes
Dani died before she learned the Rules. Will explains them to her now so that she won’t think he’s out to get someone for no reason. He wants her to know that he has a purpose—this is about family. Had Will known the Rules when Dani died, he would’ve avenged her death as well. Dani asks Will what will happen if he misses. Will says he won’t, but Dani persists and questions how he knows he won’t miss. She asks if Will has ever shot a gun. Will says it doesn’t matter, and repeats that it doesn’t matter to himself. Dani is disappointed and puts her hands to her face as though she’s trying to wipe away her worry, which Will doesn’t think she’ll be able to do.
Will is somewhat unclear here: he insists he would have avenged Dani’s death if he’d known about the Rules back then, but there’s no indication he had easy access to a gun back then or would have been able to use it at such young age. It seems, then, that Will is trying to prove his loyalty to Dani and to the reader by insisting that he’s always been an avid follower of the Rules. Asking Will what happens if he misses forces Will to confront the possibility of killing another innocent kid like Dani, while Will’s unwillingness to engage with her shows that he still believes there’s no way to get out of the Rules.
Themes
Will turns to Buck, hoping he’ll say something that will help. Instead, Buck merely pulls out his cigarettes and offers one to Dani. She takes one and thanks Buck. Will asks if Dani smokes; in response, Dani asks if Will shoots. She places the cigarette in her mouth and leans forward for Buck’s match. As Buck strikes the match, the elevator stops.
Taking the cigarette and lighting up is a way for Dani to make the elevator even more claustrophobic for Will. In this sense, the ghosts seem to be intentionally making Will feel uncomfortable so that he’ll understand the consequences of killing Riggs. If Will goes through with the plan, he’ll end up trapped for the rest of his life—though likely in a prison cell or a coffin, not an elevator.
Themes
