Fall from Innocence
Herman Hesse, in his work Demian, said, “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.” This quote can applied to explaining how people grow up. The quest to become an adult isn’t always delightful and sweet for the reality, which the children get to confront instead of myths, is sometimes bitter. Unlike what the childhood fantasies say, the real world is corrupted and harsh. Therefore, during the process of growing up, it is inevitable to have many of our illusions and myths to be shattered, which was the same for Gordie, the main character in Stephen King’s novella The Body.
1) Realizing adults / parents
Innocent babies and most of the children believe that adults are perfect, both physically and morally. Especially parents are role-models for the children to follow, since they are the very first people that babies see and learn from. Teachers, given authority and honor by the society, is also respected and trusted by the students. Thus, children have innate fear and admiration towards adults including their parents. The process of growing up deals with this issue; children learn that adults aren’t always perfect and nice.
Gordie feels betrayed by his parents as they never really paid attention to him. His parents’ sole concern was Dennis, Gordie’s older brother, who died in a car accident prior to the beginning of the story. Teddy seems to be proud of his father as a war veteran but still he suffered great pain because of him. Chris literally “hates” his father, and he realizes how teachers can be corrupt through the milk money incident. Feeling sorry, Chris gave the money he stole back to Miss Simons, the teachers, who used it for her new skirt. Hearing the story, Gordie is also shocked in vein of learning the reality.
2) Realizing friends
It is true that throughout the journey, Gordie finds true meanings of friendship. The journey they go through involved team work and trust between friends. However, as the story heads toward the end, Gordie also learns that friendship isn’t eternal either. Chris tells Gordie the truth that “friends drag you down,” pointing Teddy and Vern. And it was also true that Gordie and Chris slowly departed from the other two after the adventure, as Teddy and Vern became “two or more faces in the halls.” Friends, unlike our childhood dreams, aren’t always perfect, helpful or everlasting.
3) Realizing life and mortality
This story is frankly about a journey to find a dead body. The four little boys get to confront the reality of “death” and “mortality,” which impacts the soul for sure. Gordie, after seeing the dead body, said, “He was a boy, he was dead, and I rejected the idea that anything about it could be natural; I pushed it away with horror.” Confronting mortality broke up the childhood myths towards life and death, showing the reality. And through this process the four boys grew up.
