Reading Journal #2 - The Body

    

        “This business of being ignored: I could never really pin it down until I did a book report in high school on this novel called The Invisible Man … [N]obody notices him at all … like a black ghost”

Gordon Lachance, the protagonist of Stephen King’s novella The Body, is a twelve-year-old boy, brought up in a rather average family. He has three friends named Chris, Vern and Teddy. The four play together in their own secret meeting room, the tree house. This novella is basically a story about their adventure to find a dead body. But before the actual journey begins, King introduces the characters by inviting the readers for a journey to the suburbs of Maine during the ‘60s.

First of all, Chris Chambers is from a poor family and his father has alcohol issues. His brothers, “Eyeball” Chambers and others, are recognized as problematic students in school and in the whole town. It says that Chirs’s dad was “always on a ‘mean streak,’ more or less.” And Chris also “hated him like poison,” since he was beaten by his drunken dad occasionally.   

     The other two friends also come from inferior family backgrounds. Teddy Duchamp has a father sent to the “section eight” in hospital because of his mental illness. When Teddy was eight years old, the father shoved Teddy’s head to the stove, burning up and leaving a irrevocable scar. Vern Tessio’s family isn’t that much explained but his brother Billy Tessio is a member of the town gang, led by Ace Merill. Also Vern’s still in fifth grade, despite the fact that he is twelve.

     Last but not least, Gordie also has some issues within his family. He is constantly neglected by his parents. They only seem to care about Gordie’s older brother Dennis, and as he died in a jeep accident, they lost interest at all. And when Gordie asks his father if he could play with his friends, his father responds, “A thief and two feebles. Fine company for my son.” Gordie is upset towards his father who doesn’t try to understand at all.