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
Max says that even someone as dumb as him knows you can’t stop Kenny, but he tries anyway. He can barely walk and his hands are numb, but he shoves Kenny and asks him to stop. Kenny flicks Max away and he seems impossibly strong. Loretta isn’t struggling anymore. Max tries to get between Kenny and Loretta and he screams that he saw Kenny kill Annie—he knows Kenny did it. Max feels trapped and weak, like he can’t move Kenny’s fingers from Annie’s neck or Loretta’s neck. Everything feels mixed up; Kenny is doing to Loretta what he did to Annie and he has the same look in his eye—like he wants Loretta to die. Max feels like he’s four years old again and trying to save his mom.
In this moment of trauma, the truth finally comes out: Max did actually see Kenny murder his mother. The trauma is so great that Max experiences flashbacks and he can’t entirely separate his past from his present. This indicates that Max’s memories still have a great deal of power over him and they can fundamentally change how he interprets his present. Learning what happened also explains much of Max’s other odd behavior—everything he does is intended to help him forget and distance himself from this memory.
Themes
Max screams again that he knows Kenny killed Annie; he’s never going to forget. Kenny finally lets Loretta go and he asks Max to repeat himself. As Kenny puts his hands gently around Max’s neck, he says that Max can’t possibly remember—he was too young and “they” brainwashed Max into thinking he could remember. Max says that they never talk about it but that they don’t have to since he can’t forget what happened. Kenny says that’s impossible, but Max tells Kenny exactly what happened: he tried to stop Kenny, so Kenny locked Max in his room and he said it was a dream. Max broke a window and he shouted for someone to help Annie—and now, Kenny fooled the system into letting him go. Kenny mutters that he has to clean this up and he starts to squeeze Max’s neck. Max feels small and weak.
Even if Max is still very much a scared child here, this is one of the most mature and adult things he does over the course of the novel. Because Freak has been working with Max to show him that he’s capable of remembering what he wants, Max now has the ability to say outright what he remembers. Through this, Max gains a degree of control over his memory. Even if Kenny factors into it, it’s still Max’s memory—and nothing Kenny says or does can make Max forget what he remembers.
Themes
Max hears a window break and a faraway voice commanding a “villain” to put his hands up. He falls to the ground and he can breathe again. He notices Freak rolling through the basement window. Freak points a big squirt gun at Kenny. Kenny looks around, shakes his head, and says he knows it’s not a real gun. He insists that Max must really be stupid if Freak is his sidekick. Freak says that for Christmas, he got a squirt gun and a chemistry set—so his squirt gun contains sulfuric acid, a corrosive liquid. He squirts Kenny right in the eyes and Kenny screams. The scream seems to wake Max up. He grabs Freak, and though he can feel Kenny behind him, Max makes it up the stairs. He dives right through the plywood and into Iggy Lee’s arms. There are cops all around.
Freak is so brave here in part because of his love for Max, but Freak’s behavior also has to do with his grasp of the power of storytelling. Like Kenny, Freak is very aware of how to present himself and conduct himself to seem theatrical and compelling. In this case, it works: Kenny lets Max go because of Freak’s surprise appearance. It’s also possible to interpret Freak’s fearlessness to his knowledge that he’s not going to live very long. It’s possible that since Freak knows he’s going to die, he wants to be as dramatic as possible—he does things like this knowing that it will make for a good story later.
Themes
Freak laughs gleefully and he says it worked—his squirt gun only contained soap, vinegar, and curry powder. The cops arrest Kenny, but Max can only think about Loretta down in the cellar. He tells the cops about her and they help her out. Grim, Gram, and Gwen rush to the boys, and as Gram hugs Max, Gwen scolds Freak for getting out of the car. As Gwen carries Freak away, he shouts that Freak the Mighty has struck again.
The revelation that Freak’s squirt gun didn’t contain sulfuric acid again drives home how skilled Freak is at telling stories. He’s able to convince even someone like Kenny that his eyes are burning. Even stories told by a preteen have the power to bring down someone as strong and cruel as Kenny, if they’re told well.
Themes
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