The Quintessential Rebel

A detailed Summary of The Quintessential Rebel

In Allan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner, we are introduced to Smith, a man with his own standards, beliefs, values, and battles. As we are taken through the story of a period of his live, we come to understand what Smith really stands for. He is a diehard rebel that is destined to always stick to his beliefs, and is willing to sacrifice all in a battle against his greatest enemy and opressor, society.

Throughout the book Smith gives us a chance to get to know him. He willingly shares his thoughts with the reader, and often times his thoughts develop as he is telling his story giving us an up-close look at the inner workings of Smith's mind and personality. Smith belongs to a group of people he calls the Out-Laws. It is the underprivileged lower class poor street criminals. Crime runs in Smith's family, and being born into poverty he nether sees, nor is even willing to contemplate a life without crime. At a point he hints on having some communist views, and perhaps suggests that his father had communist friends, if he wasn't one himself. Fatally inflicted by cancer, Smith's father died a painful death. We later find out that it was Smith who found his father brea

ave them a lump of cash upon his father's death. "...a wad of crisp blue-back fivers ain't a sight of good" (Sillitoe, 20) says Smith as the one break his family got was only due to his father's death. Smith is not money hungry, he steels simply to get by. He knows exactly where he stands in the world- in direct opposition of the In-laws, the "pig-faced snotty-nosed dukes and ladies""(Sillitoe, 8). He realizes that he is a poor nobody, a petty criminal, an outcast of society.

Smith may not be a very educated man. He may not have even considered possible alternatives for his life: "it might be possible to do such a thing, run for money" (Sillitoe, 39). He simply and faithfully stands by the position in life that he'd been granted, the only thing he knows. A good and honest man in his own perception of the world, Smith is ready to sacrifice all rather then conforming the his greatest enemy- society. At the end of the book Smith mentions that he entrusted his story into the hands of a friend, that would attempt to get it published in the event that he gets caught in his greatest robbery yet. This goes only to suggest that Smith does get caught, inevitably loosing his self-proclaimed rebellious war. But for a true rebel, it was the war itself that counts.

thless in a pool of his own blood, and to this day has a great deal of respect for him. The first time Smith's family gets a ta

Some common words found in the essay are:
Distance Runner, Cup Smith, Governor Smith, Cup Smith's, In-laws Out-laws, Borstal Smith, England Borstal, blue ribbon, Prize Cup, Ribbon Prize, ribbon prize cup, blue ribbon prize, father's death, book smith, own standards, ribbon prize, rebellious war, smith's family, death smith, prize cup, distance runner, Blue Ribbon,

Approximate Word count = 945
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English