The middle drawer of Shawn’s dresser symbolizes the darkness and danger in Shawn himself. Will explains that the broken middle drawer was the only thing out of place on Shawn’s neat and tidy half of their bedroom—and furthermore, it contained Shawn’s gun. Both Will and their mother ignored this, however, just as they ignored the clear evidence that there was a darker side to Shawn than the jovial, loving, and neat brother and son that Will and his mother wanted to see. He was, despite his best intentions and everyone’s fears, a person with a violent streak that ultimately led to his death. Though Will, by breaking into this drawer and stealing the gun, may be experimenting with his own violent tendencies, the novel also suggests that Will doesn’t have to let his dark side define him or end his life, as it did for Shawn. The broken middle drawer and the gun within it can thus be seen as a representation of the darkness and violence that, to some degree, exist in all people—and the idea that ignoring this violence in others or allowing it to become one’s own defining characteristic are choices, not inevitabilities.
The Middle Drawer Quotes in Long Way Down
A BROKEN HEART
killed my dad.
That’s what my mother
always said.
And as a kid
I always figured
his heart
was forreal broken
like an arm
or a toy
or the middle drawer.
I TOLD HIM
about the
drawer,
the gun,
that I did
like he told me,
like Buck told him,
like our grandfather told
our uncle, like our uncle
told our dad.
I followed The Rules.
At least the first two.
The Middle Drawer Symbol Timeline in Long Way Down
