A Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds is a very fast-paced read for it is a collection of poems but the story of Will has an in depth narrative which leads the audience wanting to know more. When it comes to a book full of prose, it can become very easy to miss parts of the narrative. For me personally, it was difficult to grab a hold of the story sometimes due to the fact that it was so stylistically set up in a way…I forgot that I was also reading a narrative. Right away we become aware with the fact that Will’s brother, Shawn has been shot. They have lived in a neighborhood that has been infected by gun violence to the point where people follow a given set of rules.
Leading into the rules of: No Crying, No Snitching, and Get Revenge–the cultural code becomes relative very quickly in the beginning of the text. If he decides to conform like the rest of his town does every day, he will now be a part of the loop. If he follows the rules, he will die, but if he doesn’t he will be breaking the sacred rules that have been taught to him by his older brother Shawn. Will feels like if he doesn’t do this for his brother, he will fail him and that he is obligated to follow them. On page 35 the text says: “Another thing about the rules: They weren’t meant to be broken. They were meant for the broken to follow.”
This follows with the Proairetic code in which leads into the stories that are told on the elevator. The first person Will meets with is Buck, Shawn’s best friend who was shot. Buck acknowledges that Will has a tail (a gun) and asks why he has it. Which follows to this:
Happened last night.
Followed him from the store.
Caught him slippin’,
gave him two to the chest
right outside our building,
I said,
anger sour in the back of my throat.
But I know it was the Dark Suns.
Riggs and them. Had to be.I see,
he said,
shaking his head, his mouth fading
into a frown.
So what you ’bout to do?My eyes turned into razor blades.
I’m about to do what
I gotta do. What you woulda done.I squared.
pages 94-95 Reynolds
Follow the Rules.
With the rules this it how it works. There’s a continuation of gun violence, someone else gets shot, whoever is close to that someone else gets mad and shoots someone else. Therefore, there are multiple endless cycles of reaccuring deaths surrounding Will. This is apparent in each person we meet. Later on we meet Dani, who is shot by a misfire of someone else’s gun war. She is hoping to help Will realize that there is more to it than revenge. People miss their shots and that’s why she is dead. His Uncle Mark was murdered, so his father which we also meet admits that he killed the wrong guy. Because of this, his father is also murdered for killing someone because they are all following the rules. We meet Frick who is the one who murdered Buck out of being terrified after a robbery gone wrong after trying to be inducted into Dark Suns who was then murdered by Shawn. Now Shawn appears in the elevator and it is him and Will who come face-to-face about this chain reaction of holding a gun and following through with the rules. All of the people in the elevator that he is faced with have been dictated by gun violence and it appears that as much as 5 out of 6 of them have followed the rules, maybe he shouldn’t do it. The book ends with his brother asking: “You coming?” (page 306). Which leads the readers to a jamming ending with what decision Will truly decides to make for himself and for his brother.
KKJM Reads 
I thought you did a great job of looking into both the cultural and proairetic codes in your post. Another code I found particularly interesting when analyzing this novel was the symbolic code. In this novel, I found the symbolic code to be most evident in Will’s struggle between peace and violence. As Will attempts to make the decision of whether he should follow the rules as those before him had, or to branch off and attempt to carve out a new path separate of “the rules,” he reinforces the cultural code of the endless cycle of violence. The symbolic code is demonstrated in that Will is torn between going the way of those before him; of avenging his brother’s death and eventually being murdered himself or choosing not to seek revenge against the person who killed his brother and attempting to pursue the path of peace. I thought that this intersection between the cultural and symbolic codes was very interesting, especially because in Will’s situation, even if he did make the decision to forgo violence in favor of peace, there was no guarantee that he would obtain in because of the dangerous environment he lives in. I found the symbolism of this situation to be the antithesis of the novel, in that even if Will does go the way of peace, there is still a good chance that he will be affected by violence, thus once again reinstating the endless cycle of violence which is demonstrated in the cultural code.
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I also find it worth noting that yes the story can easily become a quick read, it is important to note that you should take this time to pause to read the words on the page, how they are (is it written in form? Italics? What are the words around it) and the language used. Will has a distinct language in the novel. In my cultural diversity class I read an article describing this not as slang but a language in African American culture. The article described this language not as an incorrect use of language but just a different one. I felt it was important to note was discussed in class as well, this idea that humans also have an animal nature. Hunt or be hunted. Are we just a bunch of animals? We used one single sentence,“The first person Will meets with is Buck, Shawn’s best friend who was shot. Buck acknowledges that Will has a tail (a gun) and asks why he has it” to begin looking into the text.
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