To Many Questions No Answers

The Body Reading Journal 2 
(About the Whole Book)

Stand By Me (Stephen King) - Hallelujah

Fall from Innocence

     "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you? (King, p.341)" Stephen King emphasizes several terms under the name of 'fall from innocence' in his novel 'The Body.' One of those main theme is getting mature and loosing innocence. The preceding quote shows that people irrevocably lose something when they grow up. That something is innocence: like friends Gordon had when he was twelve. Throughout the novel the loss is emphasized from several aspects: first recognizing the dreadful reality behind the beautiful cover, second understanding and confronting death, and third learning the different sides of friendship.

     Gordon gets to recognize that in the world, there are more under the beautiful mask. "But I never thought ... I never thought that a teacher ... oh, who gives a fuck, anyway? (p.383)" Chris confesses to Gordie the story about the milk money, and Gordie gets stunned about the acts of such a person with authority. Chris, like he appears in the quote, who also did not even think about the old lady Simons to steal the money from him, was shocked. From then, both of them would have learned that authorities are not all to be trusted: they are just masks of people. They lose their innocence here, and gain one big chunk of doubt in believing people. Also the part with the leeches show the idea too. "Behind the dam there was a clear and shining pool of water, brilliantly mirroring the sunlight. (p.395)" The pool seemed so peaceful and lovely on the first sight. Nobody doubted about what's in the pool; and there were the "Leeches!(p.396)". The bloodsuckers were all over their naked bodies and Gordie, had "the granddaddy of them all clinging to my testicles, its body swelled to four times its normal size. (p.397)". This fainted him and it occurred him "a lot of nightmares later on (p.395)". He never gets to forget that experience, and learns that the cover cannot say anything. "If I had looked more closely I could have saved myself (p.385)".

      The journey also allows Gordon to confront and understand death. Gordon couldn't really digest the meaning of mortality when his brother Dennis had died. Gordon suffered from numerous nightmares of Dennis and Gordie was blamed of being alive in those dreams. However two experiences from his expedition allowed him to understand death: first with the train, and the second with Ray's corpse. "GO FASTER, VERN! FAAASTER! (p.361)" The four kids-Gordie, Chris, Teddy, Vern-were crossing the narrow track bridge, and there was nowhere else to go if the train came while they were crossing the bridge. The quote is Gordie's, who almost felt "the trestle to start shaking under my feet (p.361)", urged Vern to run faster, who was in front of him. The bridge was too narrow for Gordie to overtake Vern, and Vern was too slow for the train. When Gordie actually felt the trestle shaking under his feet, he jumped below the bridge with Vern. Death was pursuing him viciously, and after that "I was alive and glad to be (p.363)".

     Furthermore, the climax of this novella supports the aspect of getting the idea of mortality. "The kid was can't, don't, won't, never, shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't (p.408)." Gordie gets to understand what the death of the kid meant to him when he saw Ray's corpse. It meant that Ray couldn't do all the things what he seemed to have been doing, and what Gordie have been doing for his life, like "waking up at two o' clock A.M. on the morning of November 1st (p.408)". "The kid wasn't sick, the kid wasn't sleeping. ... The kid was dead; stone dead (p. 408)." "The kid was disconnected from his Keds beyond all hope of reconciliation. He was dead (p. 409)". Confronting the death, even of someone in his age, Gordie gets to digest the meaning of mortality and how it is irrevocable. 

     And from the idea of understanding the idea of death, Gordie looses one more layer of innocence: dreaming. This is something very sad of kids when they grow up: everyone agrees that people need to accept the reality, and that is inevitable. The reality is, however, never perfectly happy like most kids think, and when they get to know the tragic sides, resign, and get to accept those actualities, they trash their dreams. Those dreams are the things that can be criticized to be so unrealistic: but at least the kids thought it was when they were young. So tragic to let them dump their beautiful dreams, and that was what happened to Gordie: "Some people drown, that's all. It's not fair, but it happens. Some people drown (p. 432)".

     The previous quote mattered not only with the understanding of mortality but also the falling from pure friendship. "People. People drag you down (p.384)." Chris, during the journey, talks to Gordie about getting into college courses in junior high. He says that people drag himself down, and the very next moment, he said: "Your friends drag you down, Gordie. Don't you know that? ... Your friends do. They're like drowning guys that are holding onto your legs. You can't save them. You can only drown with them (p. 384)." By 'friends' here Chris meant Vern and Teddy for he pointed at them while saying it, and they were the 'two feebs' of the town. With destructive backgrounds, both of them were rolling into trade-oriented shop courses rather than college, and they would never 'get out of the city'. They were not bright at all, and Teddy was even crazy. When Chris told him about friends dragging him down, Gordie was thinking of rolling in the shop courses to be with friends-the other three kids, mainly. "Fuck the stories. I'm not going in with a lot of pussies. No sir. ... What's asshole about wanting to be with your friends? (p.380)" Chris explains how kids like Vern and Teddy will drag him down, and how Gordie will "just be another wiseguy with shit for brains (p.382)" if he take the shop courses with the friends. After, or even when going back in the adventure, Gordie gets to know what that meant, and how friendships can be so fragile and meaningless. At school Vern and Teddy "slowly became just two more faces in the halls (p.432)". 

     "Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant, did you ever notice that? But when I think of that dream, the corpses under the water pulling implacably at my legs, it seems right that it should be that way (p.432)." Once Gordie even wanted to get into the shop courses and get rid of writing just because he wanted to be with those 'busboys'. The 'corpses under the water' were Vern and Teddy, the ones who drowned in the society, and Gordie said getting them off seems to be the way it should be. He became to know that in the society, there are times like one has to part of with his friends because they become huge obstacles in his life. Right before Junior High was that, and he knew that he did the right thing with Vern and Teddy. He came to know that a pure friendship, which considers nothing else but the friends itself, won't be able to exist in real life. That is a big loss of innocence: fall from pure friendship. That was why Gordie was never able to have friends like he had when he was twelve: he became to consider things other than the person itself when making friends.
     The reality is, often times much more tragic than what kids used to think. It is because this world has both sides altogether, at the same time: the bright and the dark side. That is why kids have to fall from innocence when they grow up: for here the innocence is the pure dream itself, no irrationality, and no contradiction, when the world is not like that. The reality is filled with irrationality and contradiction, and it's too tragic for the kids to face that fact, be shocked, and trash their dreams. However it is inevitable, and something the kids have to go through in order to be an adult that can live throughout that double-bladed society. Throughout 'The Body' Stephen King have successfully drew the theme of getting mature and losing one's innocence in three big aspects: first, by Gordon recognizing that there's something more underneath the mask; second, by Gordon understanding and confronting death; third, by Gordon falling from pure friendship.