University of Maine
The University of Maine is the institution that Gordon Lachance and Chris Chambers attend after graduating from Castle Rock High School, marking the culmination of their shared effort to break free from the economic and social constraints of their hometown. For Chris, enrollment at the university represents a hard-won victory over the low expectations that the town and its school system held for a boy from the Chambers family, and it becomes the vehicle for his dream of leaving Castle Rock forever. For Gordon, it is the expected next step on a path that leads to a career as a writer, but his decision to attend the Orono campus while Chris enrolls at the Portland campus also signals the beginning of their physical separation.
Chris Chambers's Struggle to Enroll
Chris Chambers's path to the University of Maine was anything but smooth. After deciding to enroll in college-preparatory courses in his second year of junior high, he faced relentless opposition from nearly everyone around him. His parents thought he was putting on airs, his old friends dismissed him as a pussy, the guidance counselor doubted he could do the work, and the teachers were offended by his duck-tailed, leather-jacketed appearance in their classrooms, believing such attire belonged only in shop courses. He sat among the well-dressed middle-class students from Castle View and Brickyard Hill like a silent, brooding Grendel. His father in particular hounded him, accusing Chris of thinking he was better than his old man and of wanting to go to college just to turn him into a bankrupt. Once, his father broke a Rhinegold bottle over the back of Chris's head, requiring four stitches at Central Maine General Hospital. Chris almost quit a dozen times that year. The academic deficit from seven years of neglect was staggering: before he could understand introductory algebra, he had to re-learn fractions; before he could understand Latin, he had to be taught what nouns and prepositions were. He wore out his copy of Warriner's English grammar and bought another in a Portland bookstore, the first hardcover book he ever owned, which became a queer sort of Bible to him. Gordon studied with him almost every night, sometimes for six hours at a stretch, and came away frightened by Chris's incredulous rage at how high the bill for his past had come due.
Academic Achievement and Divergent Campuses
By their junior year, both boys had been accepted. Gordon finished seventh in their class, while Chris stood nineteenth. Both were accepted at the University of Maine, but they attended different campuses: Gordon went to the Orono campus, while Chris enrolled at the Portland campus to study pre-law. This divergence in campuses, while both part of the same university system, physically separated the two friends who had clung to each other through deep water. Chris's choice of pre-law, requiring more Latin, was a remarkable leap for a boy whose grammar book had once been lettered with the words FUCK GERUNDS.
Chris Chambers's Death and the Unfulfilled Promise
Chris Chambers was killed near the end of 1971, during his second year of graduate studies. He was stabbed in the throat at a Chicken Delight in Portland when he stepped between two men arguing over who was first in line. One of the men, who had been released from Shawshank State Prison only the week before, pulled a knife. Chris died almost instantly. Gordon read about it in the newspaper under the headline STUDENT FATALLY STABBED IN PORTLAND RESTAURANT. The University of Maine, which had been the destination of Chris's desperate ambition and the symbol of his escape from Castle Rock, became the context for the final news item about his life.
Narrative and Thematic Significance
The University of Maine functions in the narrative as the tangible reward for Chris's grueling struggle against his family's reputation, the town's prejudice, and his own educational deficits. It represents the possibility of a life beyond the mill, the pool hall, and the fate that claimed his brothers Frank and Eyeball. For Gordon, it is the expected path that leads to his career as a writer, but the university also becomes the place where the two friends' paths diverge, foreshadowing the permanent separation that Chris's death will bring. The university is not described in any detail within the story; its significance lies entirely in what it represents: the threshold between the limited world of Castle Rock and the unknown future that Chris fought so hard to reach.
