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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What had Buck done to comfort Shawn as said in Chapter Six?

2. What does Will not feel when he steps back in the elevator towards Dani and Buck in Chapter Four?

3. What does the smoke in the elevator feel like to Will in Chapter Four?

4. In Chapter Six, how does Buck get Frick to realize he is Buck?

5. What happens at the end of the scene Uncle Mark and Will are saying in Chapter Four?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Will hears Buck talking about Shawn being upset in Chapter Six, who does Will think is the guy who bothered Shawn at the convenience store? What does Frick say when asked about Riggs?

2. How does Frick justify his killing Buck in Chapter Six? How do the other men in the elevator respond?

3. How does Will feel realizing his father shot the wrong guy as told in Chapter Five? How had he imagined his father?

4. What does Frick show to Will in Chapter Six? What do he and Buck say about what he shows Will?

5. Who gets on the elevator in Chapter Five? What do the new person and Will do? How does Will feel?

6. How had Will’s dad felt after Uncle Mark’s death as told in Chapter Five? What is the figurative language his dad uses to describe how he feels?

7. What is the script of the film Uncle Mark wants to make as described by Jessie in Chapter Four?

8. How had Shawn learned what had happened to Buck as told in Chapter Six? Why was the person who told Shawn not considered a snitch?

9. What are the stories Shawn had told Will about their dad in Chapter Five? What does Will remember about these stories?

10. Who is Frick as said in Chapter Six? How is Frick described?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Long Way Down takes place in a very structured format in an elevator, with physical layout representations of the elevator as well as each chapter taking place on a different floor. How and why is this metaphor used? What does it mean for the structure of the novel? What does this metaphor mean for the events that take place? Specifically, look at Chapter Seven and the language around an elevator that is used. Does the meaning of an elevator change throughout the novel? Write an exploratory paper with at least four textual examples.

Essay Topic 2

Generational patterns are repeated in Long Way Down. Characters are mirrors of one another. Literary devices using mirroring, such as a mise en abyme and repetition are used. At the end Chapter Six, after Frick is done speaking, Will looks into the elevator and sees only himself. What do you make of this mirroring on a narrative and stylistic level? What does it say about the content of the novel and the novel's eventual message? Write an argument pulling from at least two of the examples above in addition to two other examples from the novel of your choosing.

Essay Topic 3

In the opening poems, Will insists that what happens is true (1-4). Think back to earlier discussions of your position as a reader. Why does Will want you to think the novel is true as he insists in the beginning? How does he reaffirm that these events are true throughout the novel? What is the relationship of the novel to its readers? Write an essay response pulling on textual examples for what the role of the reader is, how this can be observed through text choices, and why the reader is in this position to the text.

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