54 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingThe Running Man
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 61-80Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 61 Summary: “…Minus 040 and Counting…”
People come out onto their lawns to watch Ben and Amelia pass. Amelia insists that the cops hadn’t meant to shoot the windshield. She can’t believe that they would risk shooting at her car if they had known she was driving. Ben says they’d be happy to see them both die. They stop at a roadblock in front of a growing crowd. Other cars and vans block them in front and behind.
Chapter 62 Summary: “…Minus 039 and Counting…”
The crowd is restless. Someone throws a rock that hits a cop’s windshield. As the cops shout for the crowd to disperse, a boy hits another cop with another stone. The crowd instantly starts fighting anyone within arm’s reach. Ben sees that the poor people—his people—are on one side of the street, and the rich on the other. There is a literal division of the classes.
Chapter 63 Summary: “…Minus 038 and Counting…”
After making it through the riot and the roadblock, Ben and Amelia drive for another hour. On the way to Derry, Ben sees military tanks. He knows the Network will blow him up if they can do it without a public relations disaster. Amelia, terrified, keeps repeating that she wants to get high.
Chapter 64 Summary: “…Minus 037 and Counting…”
As they enter Derry, Ben tells Amelia that the picture of his wife was doctored. When she asks about his plans, he admits that he wants to highjack a plane. Ben tells Amelia that she’s going to surrender to the Airline Police, who aren’t state or federal enforcement. They stop at a barricade, where an amplified voice tells Ben to proceed to LOT 16. On the other side of the barricade, Ben has Amelia ask for a bullhorn.
Chapter 65 Summary: “…Minus 036 and Counting…”
Ben has a plan. Through the bullhorn, he asks the cops to come outside for 10 minutes.
Chapter 66 Summary: “…Minus 035 and Counting…”
Ben compares The Running Man to poker. Now that Ben’s people—the increasingly angry lower class—are watching, the Network has to be more careful. Ben tells Amelia that the Network may have forgotten they are playing a rigged game since they have been playing it for so long. Ben thinks he can outbluff them.
Chapter 67 Summary: “…Minus 034 and Counting…”
Ben speaks through the bullhorn and claims he has 12 pounds of dynacore explosives. He claims that he has the imploder ring—the detonator—pulled halfway out and anything that disturbs his body will detonate the ordnance. He then demands a jet with a minimal crew in 90 minutes. Evan McCone appears and talks to Ben through a bullhorn. He accuses him of lying about the explosives.
Ben asks Amelia to lie for him. He describes the dynacore and the imploder ring for her. His only chance is for her to convince McCone that he is telling the truth about the explosives. Amelia gets out of the car.
Chapter 68 Summary: “…Minus 033 and Counting…”
When McCone tells Ben that it will take three hours for the plane to arrive, he knows that Amelia lied for him and bought him more time. However, he also knows that they’re probably already interrogating Amelia and may get the truth from her before he can get a plane.
Chapter 69 Summary: “…Minus 032 and Counting…”
McCone says they need more time to refuel an aircraft. He also says the plane flaps are frozen and it will take some time for them to thaw.
Chapter 70 Summary: “…Minus 031 and Counting…”
Ben meets McCone face-to-face on the runway. McCone is jovial. He congratulates Ben for beating The Running Man’s record two hours earlier and says that if Ben will surrender, he’ll give him a private death, a rare courtesy.
Chapter 71 Summary: “…Minus 030 and Counting…”
McCone says that he knows Amelia is lying. He tells Ben that they’re going to shoot the plane down with a missile if he manages to get into the air. Ben reminds McCone that they’ll be flying low over neighborhoods. McCone, obviously enjoying the game, admits that they’re bluffing. However, he says they’re going to use a drug on Amelia that will make her tell the truth. Soon they will know whether Ben actually has the explosives.
Chapter 72 Summary: “…Minus 029 and Counting…”
Ben boards the airplane and meets the pilots, Don Holloway and Wayne Duninger. He uses their radio to call McCone and demands that he and Amelia board the plane.
Chapter 73 Summary: “…Minus 028 and Counting…”
Ben knows that because he is using the airplane’s radio, everyone watching the program can hear their conversation. He thinks the Network will have to obey his demands to avoid a public relations catastrophe.
Chapter 74 Summary: “…Minus 027 and Counting…”
Amelia and McCone board the plane. Ben mocks McCone and then makes him sit in a different section, away from him and Amelia.
Chapter 75 Summary: “…Minus 026 and Counting…”
The plane takes off as Amelia holds Ben’s shoulder.
Chapter 76 Summary: “…Minus 025 and Counting…”
Two troopers watch them take off. One is glad that Ben took McCone with him. The other says he’d like to see Ben win. One of them says that he thinks an explosion is coming.
Chapter 77 Summary: “…Minus 024 and Counting…”
Ben sends the pilots west and asks Holloway to point out sights as they go. It’s the first time he’s been on an airplane.
Chapter 78 Summary: “…Minus 023 and Counting…”
Ben writes a note to Amelia on the plane’s stationery. It says she’s probably bugged and asks her to beg him not to pull the ring five minutes from now. He asks her why she lied for him. She says she helped him because he made her feel like a murderer because she was complicit in the search for him.
McCone enters their section as they rehearse the scenario. McCone suggests amnesty and laughs when Ben calls him the hired help and insults him. McCone flails when Ben suddenly screams that he’s pulling the imploder ring. Then he is furious when Ben laughs at him.
Chapter 79 Summary: “…Minus 022 and Counting…”
Ben makes the pilots turn south.
Chapter 80 Summary: “…Minus 021 and Counting…”
Ben grows drowsier no matter what he does. He drinks coffee and punches the bullet wound in his side to keep himself awake.
Chapters 61-80 Analysis
The crowd’s unrest brings The Class Divide to a head. When McCone threatens to bring the plane down, Ben reminds him that the government has a way of making itself look infallible and justified in anything it does: “‘Don’t you watch The National Report?’ Richards asked, still smiling. ‘We don’t make mistakes. We haven’t made a mistake since 1950’” (357). Ben knows the government would be willing to shoot the plane down, even if it meant a great deal of collateral damage. It would do so in a way that would look necessary. However, he is right to assume that the Network would prefer to avoid the public relations complications that would result. Ben is learning to use media manipulation to protect himself.
Amelia begins to realize that, as a part of the audience, the Network has manipulated her. Ben has taken her hostage, but he is still not the monster that she saw on TV. When she says that Ben made her feel like a murderer, complicit with the rest of the public, she acknowledges his humanity, something the Network has gone to great lengths to hide. She is slowly losing faith in what the media has shown her. She could escape from Ben, but, instead, she lies for him: “The woman had looked into the abyss and then walked out across it” (307). This provides hope that the public may ultimately be galvanized to revolt against the totalitarian Network.
King reveals that McCone appreciates Ben’s work, even though the feeling is not mutual. McCone’s support of the government is idealistic. He gives the air of a true believer when he says: “Human life has a certain sacred quality. The government—our government—realizes this. We are humane” (320). He is in a position—perhaps better than anyone—to know that what he is saying can’t be true. However, it is also possible that McCone has also been a victim of media manipulation. He could have come by his conviction through warped reasoning, brainwashing, sadism, or indoctrination.
Orwell shows how the crowd is desensitized to violence. They take pictures of the car carrying Ben and Amelia as if they are at an amusement park or a zoo. Ben recognizes that the crowd is split into two groups, the haves and the have-nots, particularly when they begin fighting each other without obvious provocation. Members of the lower class share an anger that is slowly focusing on the Network, the government, and the societal control that they live under.
As the novel enters its final stretch, it seems as if there is no escape for Ben. King uses the standoff between Ben and McCone to raise the tension, as well as to foreshadow how Killian will offer Ben McCone’s job.
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