Stand By Me Analysis

Stand by Me by Rob Reiner is a story revolving the adventure of 4 young boys as the look for a rumored body just outside of Castle Rock, Oregon. Throughout the movie, a theme that is conveyed, is the difficult transition to becoming mature and learning to let go.
The train tracks are almost always seen in the movie, and the boys follow them to find the dead body. However, by following the tracks, they have almost died twice. The most dramatic moment, was when the boys wanted to cross over the ravine/river. Chris and Gordy had the idea to get across using a detour, however the idea was quickly shut down, thus they were forced to cross using the train tracks that bridge the two sides of the ravine. When the boys got past half of the bridge,

All throughout the journey, Gordy was very excited to find the body, as were the rest of his friends. As the journey went on, and the more little fights the group had gotten into, Gordy began to question “maybe the body shouldn’t be a party”. When they finally found the body, Gordy was sad and was questioning “why he [Ray Browler] had to die”, at that moment it was very clear that Gordy was no longer excited about the body. Finally, at the climax of the movie, when Ace’s gang and Gordy’s group ran in face to face, and began fighting over the body, Gordy ordered for the body to stay where it was, and that they should instead leave a tip to the police. His friends were in shock, because they didn’t expect to walk all that way, just to leave the body where it was. When Gordy stood up for that, he showed a lot of maturity. He understood that there isn’t really anything fun or exciting about a dead body. He understood that a dead body, means that someone died. It’s as if Gordy matured over a short period, and he didn’t find it as exciting as his friends. This again supports the theme, because he only realized that the dead body wasn’t exiting, it was tragic, only after he had seen it. And that is the toughest things about becoming more mature, is going through certain experiences, and understanding them from a completely different