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Summary
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 tells the reader that he never had a brain until he met Freak; Freak let Max borrow his brain. It sounds weird, but it’s the truth. Max explains that Freak had a way with words, but Max could say things with his fists long before they became Freak the Mighty. Years ago, when Max first went to daycare, people called Max “Kicker” because he’d kick anyone who tried to hug him. This was right after Max’s maternal grandparents, Grim and Gram, began caring for him and they hoped that daycare would improve Max’s temper. It didn’t—instead, Max kicked everything and anyone to avoid getting hugs. However, in daycare, Max did get his first glimpse of Freak. Freak would only show up occasionally, and Max remembers him looking “fierce.”
Max’s recollection of earning the nickname “Kicker” seems to suggest that Max is a dangerous, violent kid. However, the fact that Max’s grandparents took over as his primary caregivers suggests that his parents are either deceased or otherwise absent and therefore unfit to take care of Max. Given this, Max is quite possibly experiencing some trauma or other emotional issues regarding his unstable home life, so it’s understandable that he’d act out. Regardless, Max’s actions have major consequences: people now believe that Max is still violent, like Kicker was.
Themes
Freak did eventually teach Max that remembering is “a great invention of the mind,” and that it’s possible for people to remember anything—so it’s possible that Freak wasn’t as fierce as Max remembers. In any case, Freak hit kids with his crutches, so Max never messed with Freak. Instead, Max coveted the crutches and the shiny braces that Freak wore on his legs. After daycare, Max didn’t see much of Freak until they locked eyes one day during third grade. At that point, kids called Max “Mad Max” or “Maxi Pad.” Grim and Gram always call him Maxwell, which is his real name, but he hates it.
When Max shares Freak’s thoughts on memory, it calls the truthfulness of the entire story into question—but whether or not the story is true matters much less than what Max learns from it. Most importantly, Max internalizes these important lessons about what memory can do, which helps him come to terms with his traumatic past. Grim and Gram’s insistence on calling Max “Maxwell” even though he hates the name suggests that they don’t treat him as kindly as they could.
Themes
One night, Max hears Grim whispering to Gram that Max is starting to look like “him,” by which she means Max’s father, Kenny. Grim always talks about Kenny like he’s too scary to mention by name. Grim continues that Max doesn’t just look like Kenny; he is like Kenny and he might do horrible things while they sleep. Gram shushes Grim and she reminds him that Max has big ears. Horrified, Max runs to the mirror to check and see if his big ears make him look like Kenny. To the reader, Max says that this is total “butthead” behavior, but that’s just because he doesn’t have a brain yet at this point. He gets his brain, courtesy of Freak, the summer before eighth grade. Max’s body seems to explode that summer, and Freak moves in down the street with his mom, whom Max refers to as “the Fair Gwen of Air.”
Here, Max reveals why Grim and Gram are somewhat mean to Max: they fear that Max is going to be violent and dangerous, just like Kenny was. Gram is referring to the fact that Max is always listening, not actually to his physically large ears. That Max doesn’t pick up on this is a reflection of his youth, but it also speaks to the fear and anxiety that Max experiences when he thinks about how he might resemble his father. However, when Max suggests that he only thought this way because he didn’t have a brain yet, it offers hope that Max will be able to reevaluate his thinking over the course of the novel.
Themes
