The Power of Storytelling Theme Analysis

Freak the Mighty is largely a meditation on the purpose of storytelling and the power that stories can have in a person’s life. The book itself is framed as something that Max wrote himself as a healing exercise a year after Freak’s untimely but not unexpected death from complications connected to Morquio syndrome. In addition, over the course of Freak and Max’s yearlong friendship, Freak introduces Max to a number of stories about King Arthur’s knights and his own upcoming surgery to get what he calls a “bionic body.” As Max listens to Freak tell these tales and as Max ultimately writes his own story, he discovers that stories don’t just entertain: they can provide hope, soothe fears, and even inspire confidence to do well in school. Through this, the novel positions storytelling as something profoundly beneficial—and as something that, most importantly, can give people hope.

From the very beginning of Freak and Max’s friendship, Freak shares how stories give him the tools he needs to find meaning and purpose in his life. Though Freak is a highly intelligent person and he uses this to his advantage every chance he gets, his short stature due to dwarfism and his other health issues pose very real limitations on what he can physically do. Knowing this, Freak latches on to the legend of King Arthur to come to terms with his limitations. He tells Max that King Arthur was a “wimpy kid” but that he defied expectations by pulling the sword Excalibur out of a stone easily—and Arthur also recognized the fragility of the human body and he sought to improve upon it by “armor-plating” his men. Through this, Freak is able to align himself with King Arthur and suggest to himself and to others that there’s more to him than his disability—just like King Arthur, he can transcend his physical limitations, do great things, and earn his place in history. Freak does so in part by creating the persona of Freak the Mighty with Max (the combined character of Freak riding on Max’s shoulders) and by encouraging Max to write their story down.

Even more meaningful than King Arthur in terms of storytelling, however, is another story that Freak tells Max: that he’s undergoing a medical experiment which entails an operation to give him a “bionic body.” The idea disturbs Max from the very beginning, as he doesn’t want Freak to have to experience the pain he knows comes along with surgery. But when Freak has a seizure and he ends up in the hospital, Max fully believes that Freak is going to be okay since he’s clearly at the point where he’s ready to receive his bionic body. However, Max soon learns that Freak actually died overnight in the ICU. This realization is earthshattering for Max, especially since he believes at first that either Freak lied to him about the bionic surgery—or even worse, that Freak’s doctors lied to Freak about the surgery. Freak’s doctor, Dr. Spivak, however, tells Max that Freak never lied. Rather, Freak was telling both himself and Max a story that gave them meaning in their lives—and that encouraged Max to continue supporting and believing in Freak to the very end. In other words, Freak’s insistence that he was going to receive a bionic body was more than a way for Freak to ignore his impending death. This story gave Freak a reason to live, and it helps Max to understand the power of storytelling to give a person hope and drive—even if the story itself isn’t factually true.

However, Freak the Mighty draws a clear line between stories with kernels of truth that are meant to provide hope and to entertain (such as Freak’s stories about King Arthur and his bionic body), and stories that are nothing more than manipulative lies. For instance, Kenny, Max’s father, is in prison for killing Max’s mother, Annie. Eventually, Kenny uses his supposed discovery of Christianity to manipulate the court system into letting him out on parole. He’s presumably able to make the case that religion helped to show him the error of his ways, and that now he’s a reasonable and respectful person who has earned the right to return to regular society. Kenny shows right away that while his story may have been successful in getting him out of prison, it’s nothing more than a malicious work of fiction: he ends up kidnapping Max, tying him up, and insisting that Grim and Gram (Max’s grandparents) have “poisoned” Max’s mind against Kenny. This suggests both that Kenny is still trying to use storytelling to make things go his way (as when he tries to convince Max that Max doesn’t actually remember Kenny killing Annie) and that he recognizes the power that other people’s truthful stories must have over Max. Kenny’s only hope to earn Max’s loyalty is to discredit the stories that Grim and Gram tell about him, as well as the version of events that Max knows is true—a strategy that ultimately fails. While storytelling may be enough to get Kenny out of jail, his malicious intentions combined with the utter baselessness of his tales ultimately make his stories entirely ineffective.

By contrast, Freak’s storytelling has a profoundly beneficial impact on Max—it ultimately transforms how Max thinks about his own ability to tell stories. While Max begins the novel insistent that he’s unintelligent and incapable of writing anything, a year of absorbing Freak’s stories proves transformative for Max. Though Max grieves for a year after Freak’s death, he does eventually do what Freak asked him to do: record the story of Freak the Mighty in a notebook that Freak gave Max before his death. The process of writing the story not only helps Max come to terms with his grief; it also helps him see that in addition to providing hope, meaning, and confidence, telling one’s story is also a way to honor a loved one. Because Max chooses to write down his story, Freak the Mighty and Freak himself have the opportunity to live on and inspire others.