Cycle Of Violence In Jason Reynolds Long Way Down

The burn unit staff and his family tried to protect him and told him that Alvaro was fine but Shawn knew that was not the

Will Smith has been a victim of second degree murder by a man named Cardell Hayes on April 9th 2016. It started off as a simple hit and run on Mr. Hayes which slowly but surely escalated to Hayes pulling out a gun and fatally shooting and killing Mr. Smith. On a surveillance video it shows a Mercedes SUV trailing a Hummer, until the latter vehicle stops abruptly. The Mercedes pulls up quickly, too, possibly hitting it from behind. Both vehicles are a standstill briefly, until the Hummer starts to pull over; the Mercedes, though, goes around and drives off.

1. During the trial, Gerald Stanley’s lawyer claimed that the trial was not “a referendum on race”. In what ways does Storying Violence provide a response to this assertion? Storying Violence: Storying Violence: Unravelling Colonial Narratives in the Stanley Trial provides an opposing response to the claim of Stanley’s lawyer, Scott Spencer, that the trial was not a “referendum on race”.

It becomes evident to Will that following in Shawn’s footsteps could have negative implications. The object that Will uses as a reminder of his brother shows Shawn’s flaws, “I wrapped my fingers [around the gun] / placing them over Shawn’s / little brother holding big brother’s hand” (Reynold 64). The relationship between the gun with both brothers and the brothers’ relationship to one another is made evident with Will’s actions. Will covering Shawn’s fingerprints with his own symbolizes his lack of preparedness to carry out the plan. Due to the fact that the gun brings back dreadful memories of an imperfect Shawn; Will decides not to follow his brother's path in an effort to end the cycle of violence that has perpetuated in his family.

This plot is one like no other. It combines the supernatural and the regular world, into an impactful novel in verse, that discusses empowering motifs such as gun violence and community influence on personal identity. In the novel Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds the protagonist, Will Holloman, had a brother, Shawn, who recently died due to gun violence. Will lives in an immensely toxic community, where violence is encouraged, and where brutal murders are normalized. In Will's community, there are three unwritten rules that must be followed by everyone.

Will Shawn’s experiences and guidance help Will, or will it lead him astray? The first reason why Shawn has the biggest impact on Will is because he’s an older brother/father figure to Will. For example, a quote in the book states “ Shawn was my big brother, my best friend, my protector. He was the only one who always looked out for me, no matter what” (Reynolds, 21).

Long Way Down Persuasive Essay Long Way Down, a novel written by Jason Reynolds, is a story about a 15 year old boy named Will who would like to avenge his dead brother Shawn who was killed in gun violence. Will has an option though. He goes into the elevator with 7 floors, and on each floor he is greeted by people he knew before they died. He is then told a story about why gun violence was so bad in their situations. At the end of the novel, we never really find out what Will had decided since it ended with a decision that only Will could make.

Will is dead because he is seeing dead people and at the end he went to get out of the elevator to go to the afterlife. Will is dead because he’s seeing all of his dead relatives at one time in the same place. At this moment in the novel, Will has just got to floor seven and a man got on. Will thinks he recognizes this man from somewhere and it ends up being his dead Uncle Buck.

One day, she got killed by a nearby shootout while they were playing, which ultimately altered Will's entire childhood and life. It impelled Shawn to teach him about the "rules "and adulthood because his childhood was already beginning to collapse on itself. The reason is that he just witnessed his best friend dying in front of him and described it as, "Her eyes wide, / the brightness dimming. / Her mouth, open.

, Uncle Mark demanded.” Then Will says “Okay, Okay,” Then finally “Will pulls out the gun, and… and shoots.” This is one important piece of evidence because Will can't even say the word shoots and now is expected to kill a man which might make him think about his decisions which shows Uncle Marks's influence on Will. Some people might think that Uncle Mark didn't do anything and all he did was tell a story and then the next person came. But even though it was short-lived it was still important in the impact that it resulted in.

He further says “the middle drawer is calling to me”. Symbolizing there's something in that draw that can help him with shawn. It was saying violence was calling to him. I think the writer was trying to show kids getting pulled in the streets. Most of the time they feel like they don't have a choice and they feel like they have to resort on gun violence.

This might lead to Will not wanting to make the same mistake his father did and reconsider killing Riggs. Perhaps, he might try to find evidence on why it might be Riggs that killed his brother, Shawn. In short, Mikey’s mistake might stop Will from following the rules and end the ongoing cycle of violence. In addition, Will’s father is a distinguished character in Will’s decision because he allows him to experience what it’s like to be at the edge of death. As Mikey goes in to hug Will, he reaches his hand down to Will’s waist, grabs the gun, and puts it to his head.

In his article, “Thresholds of violence” by Malcolm Gladwell, has effectively proven that the school shootings changed and they’ve became ritualized. From an incident, a group of three officers had arrived to the unit’s door step, and a young man stood in the center. The man became extremely defensive when one of the officers had to pat LaDue down. The officer had over heard that LaDue was making bombs in the storage locker, then had found a SKS assault rifle with sixty rounds of ammunition, a Beretta 9-mm, hand gun, including three ready-made explosive devices hidden in his bedroom. “There are far more things out in that unit than meet the eye” (Gladwell 2), exampling how there’s not only going to be a specific amount of bombs that would have

One big way to improve Will’s communication is to deal with the relationship violence that occurred to him. Sean started this for him in the scene where he tried to get Will to see that his upbringing was not his fault. This was a big step for Will to understand himself and how he should see his relationships. Through Sean, Will also learned some emotional understanding of himself. Emotional understanding will allow him to have emotional competence.

Even though his brother was too deep into drug and gang culture to escape, “[he] wanted Wes to be nothing like him” (72). Yet, Wes was consumed by the, “… same game that had consumed [his brother] and put a bullet or two in him,” and had never known anything in his family outside of drugs and gang violence, so drugs and gangs were the only expectation Wes had, the only place he saw himself fitting into (58). Ultimately, the expectations of those