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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Body, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loss of Innocence
Fate, Luck, and Chance
Confronting Mortality
The Power and Limitation of Friendship
Making Meaning through Stories
Summary
Analysis
Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern get to the dump around 1:30 p.m. The dump is like a surrealist painting; he never knows what he’ll see there. A man named Milo Pressman manages it, and his dog Chopper has a terrifying reputation among the children of Castle Rock, even though no one has ever seen it clearly. Luckily, there’s no sign of man or dog. Teddy and Vern start priming the water pump while Gordie and Chris watch.
The dump is a menacing place, and it offers the boys the first test of their bravery and resolution. But it also underlines their youth and innocence. Chopper is about the scariest thing the kids of Castle Rock can imagine, even though life has far greater horrors on offer. By the time they return, the book implies, the boys will have moved beyond such childish fears.
Themes
Gordie and Chris discuss Teddy’s recklessness. The previous summer, they recall, he and Chris climbed the pine tree at Gordie’s house. Teddy insisted on going all the way to the top even though the highest branches were rotted. Unsurprisingly, a branch gave way beneath his feet. On instinct, Chris reached out and caught him by the hair. Chris confesses that he dreams about that moment. In his dreams, he always misses.
The story about the pine tree illustrates Teddy’s foolishness. But it also speaks to the mutual connection and support between the boys. Chris saves Teddy’s life. Because they’re young and not really aware of their own mortality, Gordie and the others take Chris’s success as a given. But, having experienced much more of the dark side of life than the rest, Chris is already aware that luck and chance play a role, too. Yes, he was brave to save Teddy. But he was also lucky.
Themes
Chris and Gordie join Vern and Teddy at the pump. The frigid water is refreshing in the dusty afternoon heat. After refilling the canteens, the boys sit down to rest and chat and before they know it, it’s 2:15. They flip coins to determine who will go to the convenience shop for supplies. On the first toss, two boys have heads and two have tails. On the second, they all have tails. That’s a “goocher” and it’s terribly bad luck. Vern is reluctant to toss again. On the third toss, Teddy, Vern, and Chris all still have bad-luck tails. Gordie has heads. He feels scared, but Teddy breaks the mood by mocking him for getting stuck with the errand. Gordie heads down the road, thinking he’ll never have friends as good as these three.
The coin toss introduces the theme of fate as a conscious thread of Gordie’s narrative. On the one hand, believing in the good and bad luck of a coin toss seems like childish superstition. But readers should remember it in later chapters where Gordie traces the fate of his friends after their adventure. This moment also sees the first involuntary separation of the unit of four boys. Up to this moment, they’ve spoken and acted as if their fates are irrevocably intertwined. What happens to one of them will happen to all of them. But that’s not what the coins say.
Themes
