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Chapter 29
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 lets himself into his house. He undresses in the laundry room and scrubs the dirt, sweat, and grime from his skin with a rag. It comes away so filthy that he throws it out. Then he scrambles himself six eggs. His mom comes into the kitchen and asks where he’s been. He tells her he was camping at Vern’s. Mom tells Gordie how hard it is every morning to walk past Dennis’s room and realize all over again that he’s gone. Yes, Gordie says, “that’s a bitch.” She keeps talking as if Gordie hadn’t said anything at all.
Gordie’s adventure forced him, among other things, to come face to face with his own mortality. Because Ray Brower was so like him and his friends, he could imagine trading places with the corpse. He has a new and more mature understanding of death now than he did at the beginning. In contrast, Mom remains stuck in her disbelief and grief because she is unwilling to face the facts and accept Dennis’s death.
Themes
