Stand by Me paper

The film Stand By Me follows the structure of a personal narrative perfectly. It has a situation, conflict, struggle, outcome and a meaning.
The story is set in the late 1950’s and follows four children on an adventure to make a name for themselves by finding the dead body of a missing boy. The narrator of the story is Gordie Lachance. He is a professional writer who is retelling the story in his adult life. Gordie was a young boy whose family made him feeling like he was never going to live up to his brother. His brother had died a few months earlier in a car accident and he seems to be forgotten by his parents. This really bothers him, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. Chris Chambers is the leader of the group. He is tough and pretty much a bad ass. He is tough, but the image and actions of his family gives him a bad name. Teddy Duchamp is the third young boy. One word can describe Teddy; crazy. His father was a hero to Teddy because of how he took part in the storming of the beach of Normandy. Teddy’s father is now a little psycho, and once tried to burn Teddy’s ear off on a stove. Teddy still refuses to see that his father is crazy, and holds him as a hero. The fourth boy is Vern Tessio. He is a chubby kid, who isn’t very smart. He seems to love to complain and is a chicken. The boys all live in small town, the type where everyone seems to know everyone. Verno over hears where the body of a young boy’s body has been found. A search has been going to find this boy for a while. He tells the guys and they decided to set out and find the body for themselves, and become heroes and hopefully are famous and are on televisions. What the boys don’t know is that a gang of older boys, one of which is Chris’ brother, are also going to find the body.
While on the journey, each of the characters has to face the problems in their lives. Gordie must confront the conflict with his parents. Chris must overcome the image of his family. Teddy is haunted by the true facts of his father. And Vern push himself and must face challenges he normally wouldn’t. The gang of older boys also turns out to be a threat to their adventure.
Each of the boys faces their problems differently. Gordie confides in Chris and tells him how he feels that his parents would rather have is brother back alive, and himself dead than how things are now. He also doesn’t want to become a writer and doesn’t want to leave his friends in middle school to take tougher classes for smarter kids. Chris tells him that if his father and mother aren’t going to be true parents, than he will be Gordie’s parents and help him in his future. He also tells him he will not lower himself to be with the other boys in school. A very strong bond is formed between Chris and Gordie. Because of this bond Chris also confides in Gordie. He tells him about how a teacher was a very horrible person, and stole the money which he stole, when he tried to get it back. He also talks to him about how he hates that he is seen like the rest of his family and how he wishes that everyone could see the true Chris. Teddy is faced with what the rest of the community thinks of his father, who is a hero to him, when they are confronted by the junk yard dealer. The only way Teddy gets through this is by his friends encouraging him that his views are right, and that his father is hero for what he did in WWII. Vern over comes his fears of everything, with every obstacle the boys face on their journey. From the bridge with the train on it, to the pond with the leaches, he proves that he’s not a real chicken. When the boys finally find the body they are attacked by the older gangs of kids. They all must find their courage to stand up for themselves and scare them off. They also decided to just make an anonymous phone call about where the boy’s dead body was, and decided they didn’t want to be local heroes. It just wasn’t for them.
The boys face all of their inner demons on this journey. They all end up a little stronger and grown up at the end of the journey. Chris and Grodie go into the college courses in middle school and start to see less and less of Teddy and Vern. They all eventually grow up and go their separate ways, but Gordie always remembers them all and their great journey. Chris eventually dies after becoming a lawyer by trying to break up a fight, and that is what prompts Gordie to write the story of their adventure.
Gordie tells this story to show that his friends when he was that young were the best friends of his life, because they all helped each other so much. It’s when they did the most growing, not physically, but in the way we all must do, in that we have to stop being a kid, and face reality. And without friends, it would be a rough journey.