Geography The Long Walk

Joy Prior
January 29, 2011
Otterstorm, Samuel M.
GOEG 120H
Section 001
Geography can stitch the introduction and the climax of the plot with such even stitches that most readers never even see the basic elements of geography in the patchwork of events. While reading The Long Walk it is impossible to not realize that the geography of a story can mold the characters into lumps of clay or mounds of sand.
I enjoyed the book emensly, and felt that it captured an unrepeatable experience. It was the first time in my life when I have read a novel with geography in mind. This new perspective enriched the book. As I read the reality of the impact of geography seemed undeniable in the development and areas of the world.
The novel is written from notes of Slavomir Rawicz’s account of traveling across the Asian continent. He was a member of the Polish army, and imprisoned by the Communist Russia after the war. After being tortured he along with thousands of others were marched across Siberia to a prison camp were the prisoners were expected to starve, freeze, and die before the end of their decades long sentences. Rawicz and six other men make a daring escape with the help of one of the officer’s wife, and begin the long journey to India with the hope of reaching allies who would allow them to return home. While on the escape they meet another escaping prisoner Kristina, and she is adopted into the group. Throughout the novel some of the many geographical elements include cultural, climate, land formations, trade, and human-environment interaction.
The chapter Life Among the Friendly Mongols caught many cultural elements. Throughout this chapter Slavomir Rawicz recounts their experiences with the Mongol people. The company would often work in the fields, or help fish for the locals in exchange for food and shelter. In one of the stories they meet a traveling caravan. The members of the caravan assume that Smith is the leader of the party because they assumed from his grey-streaked beard that he was the eldest of the party. That night when the caravan shared tea with the runaway party they offered the tea to Smith first, and then there was slight confusion as the Mongolian party tried to assume who was next in age. The last people to drink were Rawicz, and Kristina. No one was quite sure if Kristina was given the tea last because she was obviously the youngest or if she was given the tea last because she was a woman.
While reading The Long Walk it is impossible not to notice the impact that the bitter and scalding hot climates had on the travelers. The influence of climate is most noticeable in The Gobi Desert: Hunger, Drought and Death chapter because several of the travelers die in the blinding heat. In this section of the journey it was only the company and nature. In the other regions mentioned in the book the group was able to depend on the locals for food, shelter, and there seemed to be a decent supply of water. The only sign of human life in the Gobi desert was the garbage left behind at an Oasis from a traveling caravan, because of the intense direct sun, lack of water, and low precipitation. After Kristina and Sigmund Makowski’s die the group begins to eat snakes, and searched for water because in this climate it was impossible to survive on anything other than what nature provided.
One of the most majestic land formations mentioned in the novel were the Himalayas. Before entering India the few surviving members of the group cross through the foothills of the Himalayas. The foothills of the Himalayas are not a rolling country side but a jaw of razor sharp mountains. After months of disease, starvation, and torture Rawicz states that the night he spent gasping for air on the foothills of the Himalayas was the longest night of his life. The group hikes, climbs, and trudges forward. Paluchowicz, one of the members of the group, vanishes off a chasm and the men could not even see the bottom of the chasm in their attempt to retrieve his body. The impact that the mountains and chasm land formations had on the long walk was fatal.
When the group enters Tibet in chapter Six Enter Tibet there is an example of the trade and regional interaction for the region. First, Rawicz notices that each of the men in the area carries a wooden bowl. He asks the host and the host responds that a man would trade two yaks for just one bowl. The bowls could not be made in the region, and were made from a special silk wood that polished with age. While Rawicz watches the village he notices how revered the host was because of his understanding of subjects outside of the valley and ability to speak with the visitors. From this example the valley obviously traded with other areas, but there interactions with people from other regions seem rarer and valuable.
As the reader follows the company across the Asian continent there are examples of human-environment interaction, but one of these early examples is found in chapter Baikal and a Fugitive Girl. In this first part of the journey through the frozen forests of Siberia the group does not encounter other travelers. After sighting their first road when they came down from the Baikal Range they began to encounter factory buildings, villages, farmlands, and railroads. In regions were traveling was exceptionally difficult such as in the mountains, desert, and forest there were few to no road ways and rarely travelers. On the other hand in areas that catered to easier traveling there were roads, villages, and farm.
Some of the major geographical elements were cultural, climate, land formations, trade, and human-environment interaction. The diverse geographical elements were as apart of the journey as the innumerable footsteps of the travelers. A reader could not even ignores the geography of The Long walk if they wanted to because the snow covered caped mountains directed which direction the travelers could go and the Gobi desert burned the experiences of the journey into their minds.