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
Everyone heads down to the police station. The cops take pictures of the bruises on Max’s neck and they make him get X-rays, which annoys Max almost as much as being kidnapped. Back at the police station, Grim convinces Gram to go home. Max tells his story over and over again. Grim and the police officers say that it’s important—this time, they might lock Kenny up for good after everything he did, but especially for the two attempts at murder. He broke a bone in Loretta Lee’s neck, but she’s supposed to be okay. When Max sees Iggy looking so worried at the hospital, he starts to think that Iggy isn’t so bad.
Grim seems to imply that given the current situation, it’s necessary for Max to come into himself as a storyteller. Telling his story to the police might bring about concrete action and meaningful change. If it does, it will show Max that his voice is powerful and that if he speaks, people will listen. Max again demonstrates his compassionate nature when he thinks that Iggy isn’t such a bad person.
Themes
Christmas vacation is weird. Gram won’t let Max sleep in the basement and Grim begs Max to humor her, so Max sleeps on the foldout couch upstairs. Gram checks on him multiple times per night. It’s obnoxious, but Max knows that she can’t help herself and he’s glad to not be alone in the down under. Freak gets in huge trouble for disobeying Gwen’s order to stay in the car, mostly because Freak now has trouble catching his breath. This is because his insides are growing faster than his outsides, so now he goes to the medical research place more often. This is annoying for Freak. Once, Max asks about the secret operation. Freak says that the research continues, but the idea of the operation still disturbs Max.
After what happened, Max begins to believe that Grim and Gram do honestly love him. They’ve had many opportunities to see that Max is nothing like Kenny, so now they feel more comfortable showering him with the love and attention he needs and deserves. Even if it took longer than it perhaps should’ve to get to this place, the fact that Max now trusts his caregivers shows the power of friendship—it’s only because of Max and Freak’s friendship that Grim and Gram truly believe Max is kind.
Themes
Max attempts to convince Gram that when Freak is at the hospital for tests, he shouldn’t have to go to school either. She insists that Max has a brain of his own, but Max doesn’t buy it. Once Max and Freak go back to school, everyone is jealous that they got their pictures in the paper. Mrs. Donelli puts up the photo from the paper on the bulletin board and another kid immediately draws moustaches on them. Freak is thrilled—he says he can’t wait to grow a moustache. Max wants to forget the whole thing but he has to testify soon so that Kenny will go to prison for life. Max wants this to happen given what Kenny did to Loretta, but he doesn’t want to testify. He tells Freak that Grim is worried about what will happen if Max doesn’t testify, but Freak scoffs that Grim worries too much.
Though Freak might just be trying to play it cool when he asks Mrs. Donelli to leave up the vandalized photo, it’s also worth remembering that Freak knows he’s not going to live long—he might not ever have the opportunity to grow a moustache of his own. This could be one of the only opportunities he has to see himself with one, and so it’s a nice thing for him to look at. Stories, in this sense, can be visual as well as verbal. Seeing himself with a moustache helps Freak “remember” something that hasn’t happened, and might never happen.
Themes
Freak ends up being correct: just before the trial starts, Grim gets a phone call with the news that Kenny pled guilty and he’ll have to serve his sentence plus 10 years. Grim is elated, but Max just feels weird and worried. Grim says assuredly that Kenny is “an accident of nature,” and all Max got from him was his size and his looks; Max has Annie’s heart. Max keeps thinking that something might happen when he gets older. He might be another accident of nature. When Grim catches Max thinking about this one night, he says that things will make more sense when Max grows up. Max knows that Grim means well, but he doesn’t know that growing up is what scares Max.
Even though Grim has transformed in important ways over the course of the novel, he still demonstrates here that he has a long way to go in getting to really know Max. Max doesn’t yet feel comfortable voicing his fears that he’s going to grow up to be a horrible person to anyone but the reader—and part of this fear stems from the fact that Grim has been afraid of Max for a long time. Max isn’t entirely able to escape this trauma or this fear yet.
Themes
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