The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

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The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959), by Alan Sillitoe (contained in a short story collection of the same name) was cinematically adapted as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), about Colin, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home, with few prospects in life, and few interests beyond petty crime. When he is caught for robbing a bakery, Colin is confined in a borstal (prison school) for delinquent youth. There, he seeks solace in long-distance running, attracting the notice of the school’s authorities, but, during an important cross-country meet, which his prison school is winning against another school, he stops running short of the finish line to defy the authority of his Establishment captors.

On 9 January 2009, impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich referred to the story: “Let me simply say, I feel like the old Alan Sillitoe short story ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’. . . and that’s what this is, by the way, a long-distance run”.[1]

[edit] Analysis

The short story has elements of a Hegelian Master-slave dialectic between the protagonist (whose interior monologue composes the narrative) and the "In-Laws," the Establishment as represented by the head of the borstal. The protagonist, haunted by his personal oppression as well as that of the lower-class which he belongs (the "Out-Laws"), believes that he has a more complete realization of freedom due to his enslavement. He experiences freedom through running and the semi-philosophical pondering which he engages in while running.

[edit] Musical Adaptations

[edit] References

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