Pennywise the Clown and George Denbrough

Pennywise the Clown, the ancient shape-shifting entity that dwells beneath Derry, Maine, commits its first murder of the 1957–58 cycle by killing six-year-old George Denbrough. This act is not merely a random predation but a calculated strike that sets the entire plot in motion, transforming George's older brother Bill from a stuttering boy into the leader of the Losers' Club, a group of children who swear to destroy the monster. The relationship between Pennywise and George Denbrough is thus the foundational trauma of the novel, a single, brutal event whose emotional and narrative consequences reverberate across twenty-seven years.

The Murder: A Boat, a Drain, and a Clown

On a rainy October afternoon in 1957, George Denbrough, wearing a yellow slicker and red galoshes, chases a newspaper boat his brother Bill made for him down Witcham Street. The boat, waterproofed with paraffin, sails into a storm drain. When George peers inside, he sees not a dark pipe but a clown: white face, tufts of red hair, a painted red smile, holding a bunch of balloons. The clown introduces itself as Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and offers George his boat and a balloon. "They float," the clown says, "they float, Georgie, and when you're down here with me, you'll float, too." As George reaches forward, the clown seizes his arm, and George sees its face change into something terrible enough to destroy his sanity. The creature pulls him into the drain, ripping his left arm from its socket. Dave Gardener, a neighbor, finds George's body moments later, the left side of his slicker bright red, a knob of bone peeking through the torn cloth. The boat, meanwhile, sails on through the underground pipes, eventually emerging into the Penobscot River, still afloat.

The Aftermath: A Family Shattered

George's death fractures the Denbrough household. Bill, who was home sick with the flu when he made the boat, is consumed by guilt. His mother, Sharon, who was playing "Für Elise" on the piano as George went out, stops playing; the piano gathers dust. His father, Zack, becomes distant and cold. The family's grief is silent and separate, each member isolated. Bill later tells his wife Audra that he never thought of George for over twenty years after the murder, a forgetting that is part of the larger amnesia that afflicts all the Losers' Club members who leave Derry. Yet the trauma resurfaces in his nightmares and in his writing; all his horror novels, he realizes, spring from that single event. The murder also triggers Bill's stutter, which had been moderate before but becomes severe afterward, a physical manifestation of his psychological wound.

The Haunting: George's Image as a Weapon

Pennywise does not merely kill George; it uses his image to torment Bill. In the spring of 1958, Bill opens George's photograph album and sees George's school picture turn its head, wink, and leer. Blood begins to flow from the picture. Later, when Bill and Richie Tozier examine the album, the picture of downtown Derry comes to life, and a clown with George's face pops up over the Canal wall, reaching for them. Bill thrusts his hand into the picture and is cut. Twenty-seven years later, during the Losers' reunion, a police photograph of George's school picture is found near the body of a murdered boy, and at the final confrontation in the sewers, Pennywise appears to Bill as George, still in his blood-spattered yellow slicker, accusing him: "You sent me out and it's all your fault." Bill must confront and reject this apparition to break Its power over him.

The Vow: Revenge as a Driving Force

George's murder is the catalyst for Bill's relentless determination to destroy Pennywise. Bill tells his friends that he wants to kill It because It killed George. This personal vendetta gives him the courage to lead the Losers' Club into the house on Neibolt Street, into the sewers, and into the final confrontation. The promise they make in the Barrens—to return if It ever starts again—is sealed with a blood oath, and Bill is the one who insists on it. When Mike Hanlon calls them back in 1985, Bill is the first to raise his hand to fight. The memory of George, and the guilt and rage it engenders, is the engine that drives the entire narrative, making the relationship between Pennywise and George Denbrough the most consequential in the novel.