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Chapter 7
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 knows that “Stud City” is a bad, painfully derivative story. It treats women terribly and valorizes cartoonish masculinity. It is the work of an insecure and inexperienced young man. Yet, it’s the first thing that he wrote that he truly liked. It’s the first thing he wrote that drew on his own experiences. Crucially, by fictionalizing them, it allowed Gordie to master and control them. At least to a point.
Gordie explicitly asks readers to use “Stud City” to interpret the larger story of The Body. He leaves readers to interpret which of his experiences inform this story and how. But this story draws attention to two strands readers should pay attention to: death, and the ways in which adults betray the children they’re supposed to protect.
Themes
