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Chapter 14
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
Christmas Eve is quiet. Gwen and Freak have supper with Max, Grim, and Gram, and nobody says anything about Kenny getting out of prison. Freak is wearing a new tweed jacket with elbow patches; he argues with Grim that he’s never going to smoke a pipe while Max digs into Gram’s famous mint sauce. After supper, they sit around the tree and Grim tells stories about how poor he was as a kid. He insists that his family was so poor that his father couldn’t even afford coal—he and his siblings would get a piece of paper with the word “coal” written on it. Gram scolds Grim for telling lies, but Grim insists he’s telling tales—he means to entertain, while lies are mean.
Grim’s differentiation between lies and tales gets at the heart of how the novel thinks about storytelling. Stories like those concerning King Arthur and Freak’s bionic body are fine since they entertain and they give people hope. Storytelling, however, can also encompass stories that are nothing but malicious lies. Presumably, anything Kenny says falls into this second category.
Themes
After hot cocoa and some candy, they open presents. Grim opens a sweater, Gram opens up Max’s gift of a seashell bracelet, and then Freak opens his gift from Max. It looks like a jackknife, but it’s actually a bunch of screwdrivers. Gwen gets a scarf, and then Freak gives Max his gift: it’s a pyramid-shaped box covered in Sunday comics, and Max follows the instructions to open it. There are signs and arrows, and finally Max gets to a sign that tells him to “PRESS HERE AND BE AMAZED.” Max does, and the box folds open to reveal a handmade book. Freak explains that he made Max a dictionary. Max thinks it’s the best gift.
Max demonstrates through his thoughtful gifts that he’s kind, generous, and a good friend. Freak does the same; the dictionary will allow Max a window into Freak’s world, on Max’s terms. The dictionary is, in some ways, Freak’s story in his own words. It records the things that Freak finds interesting while omitting the words that Freak doesn’t care about. Sharing this part of himself with Max helps the boys connect on an even deeper level.
Themes
Max fears that it’ll take forever to fall asleep. His head is full of all the happy things that happened earlier, but he falls asleep and he dreams of a snowman that looks like Freak. When Max wakes up, he’s cold. This is weird, since the down under is right next to the furnace. Then, Max thinks he hears wind but he realizes that it’s someone breathing. The person rises up: he’s huge and he puts a massive hand on Max’s face and pushes. Kenny tells Max to be silent. Max tries his best to shrink into his pillow and it feels like his heart is waiting to see what happens next. Kenny says that he came back, just like he promised.
The hold that Kenny has over Max’s life becomes physical and real when Kenny shows up in the flesh. Now, he’s not just a memory that plagues Max—he’s a living, breathing person with a history of violence and cruelty. Max’s heart seems to know before Max does that this is Kenny—and that Kenny isn’t someone he can fight. Next to Kenny, Max’s size and strength doesn’t matter.
Themes
