37 pages • 1 hour read
Gary PaulsenLawn Boy
Fiction | Novella | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Resource Utilization: Its Causes and Effects”
They arrive at Arnold’s, and Joey quietly enters the house through the porch. From the outside, the boy’s family can hear various screaming and thumping noises, and then they watch as Joey hurtles a man “so hard he took the porch screen off its hinges and was propelled into the yard riding the screen on his hands and knees like it was a body board” (80). Joey follows, dragging two other men behind him. Joey wants to make good on his promise to “pinch [their] head[s]” (81), but the boy’s family gently requests an end to the violence. Joey releases the men and they scuttle away. They find Arnold tied to a chair inside, though unharmed. As they free him, the boy introduces his family. They chat over Arnold’s iced tea, relieved the trouble has passed.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Serendipitous Activity and Its Effects on Capital Quantity”
The boy’s family attends Joey’s boxing match on Saturday. They expect the match to last a while, but Joey wins in four and a half seconds with one punch that lands “so hard that it sound[s] like somebody [has] slammed a melon with an ax” (85). Joey claims the $5,000 prize money, half of which now belongs to his 12-year-old sponsor.
Early the next morning, the boy answers a phone call, and Arnold gives him a stock market update. Arnold believed he sold all the stock from the software company, but a glitch in the system interrupted the transaction. While the boy still owned the shares, the software company launched a merger with a larger company, driving each share’s value up to $40. The boy now owns $480,000 in stock. The boy refrains from fainting this time, but his father isn’t so lucky when the boy shares the news with his family over breakfast. The boy remarks that “there must be a weak male gene in our family” as they move his unconscious dad to the couch (88).
Chapters 14-15 Analysis
The climax downplays violence in favor of maintaining a comedic tone. Joey’s fights are playful rather than gruesome: “He dropped [Rock’s men] and it was like watching one of those cartoon scenes where a dog or cat is held off the ground and his legs start moving faster and faster until he’s dropped and he shoots away” (82). The novel skips over darker themes like developing the antagonist’s motives—we never really learn what drives Rock, and are led to assume that the danger he poses has passed without in-depth confirmation. Other characters also deflect potential violence: Mom interrupts Joey’s stride before anyone is seriously harmed, reinforcing themes of family and community values. Respecting his sponsor’s wishes, Joey releases Rock and his men, and the second main narrative conflict concludes.
The falling action ties together more loose ends, namely Joey’s first boxing match. Because the boy’s parents understand the full situation, the main cast of characters attends to support Joey, offering a glimpse into the boy’s new normal.
Previously separate narrative elements—the boy’s stockbroker, family, and prizefighter sponsorship—now coexist. Falling action serves to unwind tension, which this scene achieves through Joey’s swift four-and-a-half second victory. Joey’s easy win hints at more successful matches to come, and accordingly even more money filling the boy’s pockets. The boy’s future appears optimistic.
The resolution throws in one more plot twist: the boy has accumulated even more stock earnings. The story’s central pillars include the boy’s expanding knowledge and applications of capitalism and his relationships with his family and business community, and those ideas are brought to conclusion in the end. However, the ending leaves open several questions: What will the boy do with the money? Does Joey win future fights? Will the boy expand his lawn mowing business over the next several summers? The story’s opening line foreshadowed this type of ending, one in which not even the narrator—retelling his story in hindsight—can venture to guess what the future holds.
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By Gary Paulsen
