Stephen King wrote The Long Walk under his Richard Bachman pseudonym back in the late 70s, but the grit of it feels more like 2026 than 1979. It’s a simple, brutal premise. One hundred teenage boys walk south at four miles per hour. If they slow down, they get a warning. Three warnings, and they’re "interfered with"—which is just a polite military term for being shot in the head on the side of the road. There are no power-ups. No rebellion. Just the road. But what actually makes the book work isn't the gore or the dystopian setting; it’s the The Long Walk characters and the way their minds unravel under the sun.
You’ve probably seen the trope before in The Hunger Games or Squid Game, but King does something different here. He strips away the spectacle. There are no fancy arenas. There is just the asphalt of Maine and the inevitable collapse of the human spirit. It's miserable. It's fascinating. Honestly, it's one of the best character studies in horror history because it treats death as a boring, rhythmic certainty rather than a jump scare.
Garraty and the Burden of Being the Everyman
Ray Garraty is our window into this nightmare. He’s from Maine, a "hometown boy," which gives him a weird, localized celebrity status that he never asked for. He isn't the strongest. He isn't the smartest. He’s just... there. Throughout the book, you see him grappling with the sheer absurdity of his own choice. Why did he sign up? He doesn't even know. That’s the most terrifying part of the The Long Walk characters—the realization that most of them entered a death pact because of a vague teenage impulse or a need to prove something to a girl back home.
Garraty's relationship with his mother and his girlfriend, Jan, serves as his tether to reality, but it’s a fraying rope. As the miles rack up, Jan becomes less of a person and more of a ghost. King writes this transition brilliantly. You see Garraty’s internal monologue shift from "I need to get home to Jan" to "I just need to take one more step." It’s a slow-motion car crash of a psychological breakdown. He survives not through heroism, but through a sort of stubborn, rhythmic denial of his own agony.
The Enigma of Stebbins
Then there’s Stebbins. If Garraty is the heart of the group, Stebbins is the shadow. He’s the one who stays in the back, leaning into the wind, looking like he could walk forever without breaking a sweat. He is the ultimate antagonist who isn't really an antagonist. He’s just a mirror.
Stebbins represents the inevitability of the Walk. He doesn't engage in the camaraderie of the other boys. He watches. He waits for them to die. When he finally reveals his connection to the Major—the shadowy figure running the event—it doesn't feel like a cheap plot twist. It feels like a confirmation of his status as a "thin man" in a world that eats the weak. He is the personification of the idea that even if you win, you’ve already lost everything that made you human.
Friendship as a Death Sentence: McVries and the Vanguard
It’s weird to talk about friendship in a book where only one person survives, but the bond between Garraty and Peter McVries is the emotional core of the story. McVries is fascinating because he’s a cynic with a death wish who keeps saving people. He saves Garraty multiple times. Why? In a competition where your friend's death is your only path to victory, saving them is a radical, almost suicidal act of rebellion.
- McVries has the scar on his cheek from a past relationship gone wrong.
- He talks about the "Major" with a mixture of hatred and weirdly religious awe.
- He’s the one who suggests the boys shouldn't hate each other, but the road itself.
The dynamic between these The Long Walk characters creates a "vanguard" of sorts. You have Art Baker with his quiet sincerity, Hank Olson who loses his mind early and becomes a walking corpse, and Barkovitch—the kid everyone hates.
Barkovitch is essential. You need someone to loathe. He’s the one who antagonizes others to keep his own adrenaline up. He’s "the rank out artist." But even with Barkovitch, King forces you to feel a flicker of pity when he eventually loses his mind and "interferes with" himself. It’s a reminder that under the pressure of the Walk, there are no villains, only victims of a sociopathic system.
The Psychological Meat Grinder
The genius of the writing is in the pacing. King doesn't rush the deaths. He lets the blisters fester. He lets the leg cramps become the most important thing in the universe.
You see the characters go through distinct stages of grief while they’re still moving. First, there's the bravado. Then, the exhaustion. Then, the "Long Walk" stare—a total dissociation from the body. By the time they reach the halfway point, they aren't boys anymore. They are biological machines running on fumes and the primal fear of the soldiers' carbines.
Barkovitch’s descent is particularly harrowing. He starts off cocky, bragging about how he’ll use the "Prize" (whatever the winner wants for the rest of their life). But the Prize is a lie. The only real prize is the end of the walking. This realization hits the characters at different times, and it’s usually the moment they get their third warning.
Why We Can't Stop Thinking About the Major
The Major is barely in the book, yet he dominates the landscape. He is the "Big Brother" figure, the one who starts the race with a simple "Luck to you." He represents the apathy of the state. He isn't a mustache-twirling villain; he’s a bureaucrat of death. The way the The Long Walk characters view him changes from idolization to visceral disgust, reflecting the loss of innocence that defines the American teenage experience in this twisted reality.
The Reality of the "Prize" and the Ending
Most people who read The Long Walk are frustrated by the ending. Garraty "wins," but he doesn't celebrate. He sees a dark figure ahead of him—the Crow—and starts to run. He’s still walking. He’ll always be walking.
This is the actionable takeaway from the story: the characters demonstrate that the "win" in a broken system is a hallucination. Whether it’s the hyper-competitive nature of modern capitalism or the literal death march of the book, the trauma doesn't stop just because the clock does.
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How to Analyze the Characters for Your Own Writing
If you're a writer or a student of literature, looking at how King built these boys offers a masterclass in "pressure-cooker" characterization.
- Give them a physical "tell": Every walker has a specific physical struggle (Baker's nosebleeds, Olson's hollow eyes).
- Define their "Why": Every character needs a reason they are on the road, even if that reason is "I don't know."
- Use dialogue to show exhaustion: As the book progresses, the sentences get shorter. The jokes stop. The talk becomes purely about survival.
- Create a foil: Use characters like Stebbins to contrast the protagonist's emotional outbursts with cold, hard logic.
Actionable Steps for Readers and Fans
If you want to dive deeper into the world of The Long Walk characters, here is what you should do next.
First, read the book again, but pay attention specifically to the soldiers on the halftracks. They are the only ones not walking, yet they are just as trapped in the system as the boys. Notice how their humanity bleeds away until they are just robots with watches.
Second, compare this to King's other Bachman books, specifically The Running Man. You'll see a pattern in how he treats the "protagonist vs. the state" dynamic. In The Long Walk, the state wins because it doesn't even have to try. The boys kill themselves; the soldiers just provide the countdown.
Finally, look into the 2026 film adaptation developments. Lionsgate has been moving forward with Francis Lawrence (of Hunger Games fame) to finally bring this to the big screen. When you watch it, look for how they handle the internal monologues of Garraty and McVries. The challenge of the movie will be capturing the silence of the road.
The characters of The Long Walk endure because they are us. They are anyone who has ever felt like they are just putting one foot in front of the other because the alternative is too terrifying to contemplate. It’s a dark mirror. And honestly, it’s one we probably shouldn't look into for too long, but we can't seem to help ourselves.
Get your copies of the original Bachman Books collection if you can find them. The standalone editions are fine, but there’s something about reading this alongside Roadwork and Rage that completes the picture of a writer trying to exorcise his darkest thoughts about what humans are capable of doing to one another for entertainment.
Check the publication dates on your editions—the 1979 first printings are collector's items now, but the 1985 "Bachman Books" omnibus remains the definitive way to experience the bleakness of the Maine road. Keep an eye on the casting for the upcoming movie, as the actors playing Garraty and Stebbins will have the impossible task of conveying miles of internal agony without saying a word.