Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Freak the Mighty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
The Power of Storytelling
Memory, Grief, and Trauma
Family Legacy vs. Individuality
Summary
Analysis
The address on Loretta Lee’s ID is across the millpond in what people used to call the New Tenements. Now, everyone calls it the New Testaments, and Gram forbade Max from going there. The day after Max and Freak recover the purse, Freak insists that it’s okay to break a promise for a quest. Freak believes there might be a reward, but Max insists that only poor people and drug addicts live in the Testaments. Regardless, with Freak on his shoulders, Max sneaks around the millpond, happy to have a smart brain for once. Freak talks about the Round Table until they get to the Testaments, which looks sad and smells bad. Freak nervously suggests they rethink their quest. Max insists that Loretta might need her ID.
Max isn’t without his own prejudices—even a poor person or a drug addict deserves to get their purse back, and Tony D. shouldn’t have stolen a purse from anyone. However, both boys play off of each other and help the other to understand that no matter their fears of or feelings about the Testaments, returning Loretta Lee’s ID is still something they’re morally obligated to do. Their friendship, then, helps them to be better people.
Themes
The door opens before Max even rings the bell. A creepy-looking hand snakes out and grabs a newspaper, and then a woman starts cussing Max and Freak out and calling for Iggy. The door opens to reveal a scrawny blonde woman in a bathrobe. She smokes and squints at them. A huge hairy man with a beer belly and blue tattoos joins her and he insults Max and Freak. The woman insists she knows Max, but Freak interjects that they’re looking for Loretta Lee. The man begins to laugh and he pokes Max hard in the chest. Max freezes. He knows the man must be Iggy Lee, the boss of a scary motorcycle gang. Freak blurts out that they found Loretta Lee’s purse and he tosses it. Iggy Lee catches it and then he invites the boys inside. Freak tries to decline, but Loretta says that they have to.
Realizing that they’ve stumbled upon Iggy Lee impresses upon Max and Freak that they’re in way over their heads. This isn’t an innocent, childish quest—they’re dealing with real people who don’t have Max and Freak’s best interests at heart. When Loretta Lee insists that she knows Max, it implies that she knew Kenny—and now, Max is going to pay a price for looking just like his father. That Loretta and possibly Iggy knew of Kenny speaks to the kind of network Kenny had before he went to prison; these people may have been his friends.
Themes
Max lifts Freak down to enter, and Iggy makes Max sit in a ratty chair, insisting that it makes him nervous to look up. Loretta warns Max to not make Iggy nervous. When Iggy asks for their names, Freak insists they have to go home. Iggy flicks Freak on the nose, but Freak doesn’t say anything except their names. Then, Iggy asks where they got Loretta’s purse. Freak tells the truth and Iggy asks where the money is. Loretta coughs and she says that there was no money, but Iggy tells her to shut up. Max can tell that Loretta is afraid of Iggy. Suddenly, Loretta jumps up and shouts “Kenny Kane!” Max thinks for a moment that Iggy is going to hit Loretta, but then Iggy relaxes and he says that Max must be Killer Kane’s son.
Again, even if Max is clearly a scared 12-year-old boy, he still frightens grown leaders of gangs—Iggy telling Max to sit shows how uncomfortable Iggy is being around someone who’s more physically imposing than he is. Much of Max’s discomfort and fear here stems from the fact that he seems somewhat familiar with the abusive dynamic between Iggy and Loretta. This offers some clues as to what Max’s home life was like while he lived with his parents—and it explains why he isn’t very trusting of adults now.
Themes
Thrilled with herself, Loretta goes to the kitchen, brings Iggy a can of Bud Light, and starts to reminisce about Kenny. Iggy cuts her off, tells her to shut up, and crushes his can after he drains it. Max notices that the entire apartment is covered in crushed cans. Freak gives Max a confused look that scares Max more than anything else. Loretta says that Freak must be Gwen’s kid, but Iggy says he doesn’t remember Gwen. She continues that Kenny is in prison now, and Iggy asks Max to tell Kenny hi. Max says nothing, but Iggy says that Killer Kane was tough and Loretta asks if it’s true that Kenny found religion. Max admits he doesn’t know, and Loretta says that Max must be stupid and disabled.
Freak’s confusion suggests that he doesn’t know what any of this means; the crushed beer can’s don’t have the same connotation that they do for Max. Because of this, Freak is deferring to Max—something that scares Max, given that Max doesn’t think highly of his intellectual capabilities. When Loretta turns to insulting Max, it suggests that she doesn’t know how to interact with young boys who aren’t abusive and violent—in her eyes, Max must be disabled since he doesn’t act how Loretta assumes a man should.
Themes
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Loretta thinks that Max doesn’t know how strong he is and so she suggests that Iggy find out. Iggy scowls and he tells the boys to leave. When Loretta protests, Iggy calls her stupid and he says that he doesn’t want Kenny to hear that he messed with Max. When Loretta insists that Kenny is in prison for life, Iggy spits that life doesn’t always mean life. At the door, Loretta tries to rub Freak’s head for luck. Freak does his best to evade her. Annoyed, Loretta says that she knew Freak’s dad and that he was a magician. Freak looks like he really wants to know about his father. Loretta says that he was a magician because as soon as he heard “birth defect,” he disappeared. Iggy shoves the boys out the door.
Loretta reads as someone who desperately wants to feel powerful any chance she gets, hence her suggestion that Iggy fight Max. She’d get to feel powerful by association and she clearly gets a kick out of being mean to Freak. Iggy’s reaction to discovering that Max is Kenny’s son suggests that Max isn’t wrong to be scared of Kenny, as Iggy appears just as afraid as Max is. In this instance, Max’s association with Kenny actually helps him, as it means that he’s not an easy target for a much older, more powerful bully.
Themes
