Freak the Mighty: Looking Past the Appearance
In the novel, Freak the Mighty by, Rodman Philbrick Max and Kevin, two best friends, are throughout the book being judged by other people on their appearances. Max a big, tall, strong, dyslexic boy always gets judged about his dad and how his dad murdered his mom. People always are scared of him and mistake him for his dad. Kevin a small, smart boy with morquio syndrome always is being portrayed by other people as frail and poor. A constant theme demonstrated throughout the novel is that people should not judge people based on their appearances.
Max and Kevin are both people that get judged on by their looks, one is really small but smart, and the other is really strong but kind. Rodman shows the reader this when he writes, “All that walking you do, it must be stretching out your legs. And carrying poor Kevin around, that seems to be putting real muscle on you” (54). Grim always calls Kevin, “poor Kevin” which isn’t very nice. Just because he has a disability doesn’t mean he is “poor” and needs to be treated as a child. Kevin does not seem like the type of person that would like being called, “poor” to describe his physical appearance. Kevin is not poor due to inside his brain there is a whole new world of imagination. When people in the hall at their school says things “like, hey who’s the midget? And, there goes Mad Max; and, excuse me while I barf; and, look what escaped from the freak show; and, oh my gawd that’s disgusting”