Rites of passage, the journeys that dot the edges of our ultimate quest through life. They are the universal changes that can be as insignificant as a first kiss but with everlasting effects on our perspective on life. Stand By Me is a movie that was first released in 1986 from the studios of Director Robert Reiner. It details the story of four pre-adolescent teens, Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern who embark upon a quest to find the dead body of Ray Brower, a kid also around their age that had been missing from the town for weeks. These friends trek many miles with less than adequate food and nothing but their friendships holding them together. It is during this quest that, after setting out to find the body, finding it and then being
This was also a big part of the story in relation to the narrative codes as well. To start this scene helps form the characters and their relationships for the rest of the story, for example Chris comes out of his shell and we finally see the fact that he isn’t as bad and rebellious as first thought and rather that he is quite intelligent and caring. We also see Gordie change from being background boy to becoming a leader and brotherly figure for Chris. This helps build on character development early in the story so that we understand he decisions the characters make later in the story. The setting contributes to this by providing a dark cloudless night with a fire crackling in the background that cues us to imagine a night where Chris would be pondering such happenings in his life and allowing them to come to the surface to be read by others. Through this it contributes to the plot by setting up Chris as one who will protect Gordie but in the end when Chris is in trouble, it will give Gordie the courage to stand up for them and protect his makeshift brother and thus leading to the conflict between the young gang and the older gang.

The second scene that demonstrates the rites of passages that the boys in Stand By Me experience is the scene where Teddy risks his life by attempting to dodge a train to replay storming the beach at Normandy, an event in his father’s life that Teddy admires