Family Legacy vs. Individuality Theme Analysis

When the reader first meets Max, a lonely eighth-grade boy, it’s clear that he doesn’t fit in with his family. Max lives with his grandparents, whom he calls Grim and Gram, and his relationship with them is rocky: Grim, in particular, fears that Max is going to take after his violent father, Kenny, and so both Grim and Gram treat Max with fear and suspicion. Max similarly fears that he’s going to take after his father, and so he distances himself from his grandparents. However, as Max reconnects with a classmate named Kevin (whom he calls Freak) and the two develop a close friendship, Freak starts to humanize Max in his grandparents’ eyes. As a result, when Kenny does eventually show up in the flesh, it’s apparent to everyone in the novel that Max is nothing like his father. While Max may have to deal with his father’s legacy for the rest of his life, Max still has the power to rise above that violent legacy and make choices that show others that he’s kind, generous, and caring. Thus, the novel suggests that while family is a permanent and influential fixture in a person’s life, one always has the ability to choose one’s own individual path rather than falling into the same mistakes one’s family members have made.

Freak the Mighty takes place in an unnamed American town, and though the size of the town isn’t specified, it’s seemingly small given the way that Max is continuously recognized as his father’s son. Locally, Max’s father is known as “Killer Kane” due to the fact that when Max was a small child, Kenny murdered Max’s mother, Annie. When most people look at Max, they see only the ways in which he resembles Kenny. Even though he’s only 12 years old, Max is over six feet tall and he is therefore physically intimidating to others. Max also doesn’t think of himself as being particularly intelligent (and he doesn’t argue with others who subsequently buy into the idea that he’s not smart), and unintelligence is something that many people in Max’s town associate with violence. Indeed, because of Max’s resemblance to Kenny, everyone—including Max—lives in fear that Max is one day going to follow in his father’s footsteps and start hurting or killing people. These assumptions and fears have disastrous effects on Max’s emotional wellbeing. Even though it soon becomes apparent to the reader that Max wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose, Max has been told his entire life that he’s probably going to be violent and mean one day, and so he is terrified that this sudden transformation will inevitably happen. In other words, because of the way that others speak about Max’s resemblance to Kenny, Max grows up believing that succumbing to his father’s legacy is inevitable.

The townspeople’s belief that a switch will flip and Max will suddenly become violent ignores the mountains of evidence that show that Max (despite his abnormally large size for his age) is a softhearted boy who craves connection with others. Max’s teachers and even police officers seem nervous or suspicious of him, even when Max is doing something kind or heroic such as rescuing Freak from Tony D., the local bully. Police at first believe that Max runs into the pond with Freak on his shoulders because he wants to drown Kevin—something that, presumably, Kenny might have done—when in reality, the middle of the pond is the only place where Tony D. can’t get to Freak. Similarly, when Freak’s mother, Gwen, sees the boys together for the first time, she fearfully whisks Freak away. Freak, however, is in many ways an outsider and so he doesn’t think of Max in relation to Kenny. Max’s association and budding friendship with Freak, then, begins to change how others view Max. Though people are initially suspicious of the boys’ relationship, as Max continuously makes choices that benefit Freak, people—including Grim and Gram—begin to truly believe what they see: that while Max may resemble Kenny physically, he has his mother’s kind heart.

That Max doesn’t take after Kenny becomes even more apparent when, in the days after Kenny is let out of prison on parole, Kenny kidnaps Max out of his bed. Though Max goes along with Kenny and he does everything Kenny asks him to do, he does so because he’s terrified and he feels powerless next to his father—not because he loves Kenny, agrees with him, or wants to be like him. Indeed, Max’s emotional outburst as he witnesses Kenny choke Loretta Lee (a woman formerly involved with Kenny) suggests that Max is nothing like his father. Max shouts that he remembers watching Kenny choke and kill Annie in an attempt to distract Kenny and save Loretta, which demonstrates that Max has no interest in following in his father’s violent footsteps—rather, Max interprets Kenny’s legacy as something horrific and shameful, not as something to emulate or live up to. Following Max’s rescue and Kenny’s return to prison, people finally begin to treat Max like a normal, nonthreatening person on a regular basis. While this is in many ways a damning indictment of others’ prejudices and unwillingness to see Max as anything other than a clone of Kenny, Max’s transformation—both in his mind and in the eyes of others—makes it clear that while people might not be able to entirely control how other people think of one’s family legacy, it’s still possible and beneficial to assert one’s individuality.