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The Military
Gordie and his friends are part of the baby boom that took place after World War II, and as such many of the adult men they know are veterans. Because of the heroism associated with America’s role in World War II, romanticized images of the military come to define the boys’ ideas about masculinity and adulthood, echoing through the story. Gordie’s older brother, Dennis, joins the military. Teddy is proud of his father having been in the Battle of Normandy. Gordie’s Le Dio stories are popular with his friends, particularly Teddy, because they explore military heroism. Military terms also infiltrate the way the boys talk to each other. When a train approaches them at one point, Vern shouts, “Paratroops over the side,” to encourage the others to duck behind an embankment. Teddy justifies attempting to dodge a train by comparing it to his father’s heroism at Normandy. Later in life, Gordie himself joins the military and fights in the Korean War, following the blueprint of masculinity he’s grown up with.
Child Abuse
The adults in Castle Rock consistently take out their own mental and emotional issues on their children, creating an abusive environment that Gordie and his friends all must survive. Chris’s father is physically violent to the point where Chris often misses school. Gordie notes that the truancy officer still antagonizes Chris even though he’s well aware of the abuse Chris faces at home, suggesting that this type of abuse is accepted in Castle Rock. Norman Duchamp, suffering from war-related PTSD, burns Teddy’s ears on the stove. Vern lives in fear of his older brother Billy’s wrath. Even though Gordie doesn’t face physical violence at home, his parents neglect him emotionally, not even listening to the words he says. The abuse in Castle Rock is so prevalent and normalized that it echoes in Gordie’s story “Stud City,” where Billy must contend with his father’s temper, and Johnny becomes the victim of Virginia’s sexual abuse. This environment of abuse ties into the story’s theme of masculinity and emphasizes how Castle Rock is a bleak, dead-end place that Gordie must escape.
Toilet Humor
The characters in the story make jokes about bodily functions, often to diffuse moments of tension. When a member of the group is scared, they joke about pooping their pants. When Charlie Hogan starts talking about how awful it was to see Ray Brower’s body, Billy Tessio dismissively emphasizes that Charlie had vomited. At first glance, these instances of toilet humor seem to be King creating realistic dialogue for teenage boys. However, the motif continues into Gordie’s adult writings. Gordie has Chico throw up after his confrontation with his father in “Stud City.” Davie Hogan’s ultimate revenge is to vomit on the entire pie-eating contest. In all these cases, the evocation of gross-out humor works as a reaction to strong emotion, tying into the theme of masculinity. As boys and men, these characters are not expected to express weakness or strong feelings. The gross humor distracts from these feelings that they cannot express, transforming them into something that can be dismissed and ridiculed. It also metaphorically suggests that that these characters are disgusted by their own emotions and weaknesses.
