49 pages • 1 hour read
Robert CormierI Am the Cheese
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1977A 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 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The teenage Adam Farmer wants to visit his dad in Rutterburg, Vermont. He doesn’t want to be on a suffocating bus, so he plans to ride his bike. He lives in Monument, Massachusetts, and he has many fears. Adam thinks about taking some of his “pills,” but he tosses them in the garbage disposal. He wraps a gift for his dad and puts on his dad’s old hat. Adam and his dad adore the early 20th-century American novelist Thomas Wolfe, but the October weather isn’t romantic like in a Wolfe story—it’s “rotten.” Adam doesn’t say goodbye to anyone—not even the girl he loves, Amy Hertz. He delays for two hours before taking off. Adam feels the trip is ludicrous, but also like he must pursue it.
Chapter 2 Summary
A transcript of a taped conversation is given. The speakers are Brint (T) and Adam (A), with Brint pushing Adam to articulate his “earliest” memories. Adam remembers hearing his parents make “nice sounds” in their bedroom as a three-year-old. He also remembers “harsher” tones. His mom asked his dad if they should tell Adam something. His dad thought Adam wasn’t old enough to understand this thing.
During the winter, Adam and his parents went on a trip that felt like “running away.” The bus smelled horrible, and his mom looked sad. Adam remembers the smell of his mom’s perfume and how his dad smelled like cigarettes—though his dad didn’t smoke. Adam and his parents never returned to their home—instead, they moved to another house.
Adam contemplates telling Brint about “the clues.” Brint then asks about the “clues,” leaving Adam worried that the medicine he’s on is making him confuse what he’s thinking and saying out loud. Brint doesn’t push Adam—he’s patient.
Chapter 3 Summary
At a gas station, Adam rests, checks the air on his bicycle tires, and gets a map. An older man with pronounced veins calls Adam “Skipper” and analyzes the map. Adam tells the man about a motel in Belton Falls. The man tells Adam there are motels before Belton Falls and can’t fathom why Adam wants to continue his journey. The man says that the world is horrible and unsafe. There’s no privacy (people can tap phones) or trust (people can forge identification cards and documents). The man wants Adam to be careful.
The man admires Adam’s hat, and Adam explains that the hat belongs to his dad—he’s going to visit his dad in the hospital. The man also admires Adam’s army fatigue jacket, which also belongs to his dad. The man’s son was in the army and died fighting in Japan during World War II.
Chapter 4 Summary
Chapter 5 Summary
Adam bikes along Route 119 (a state highway), and cars speed by. Adam sings the first verses of the nursery rhyme “The Farmer in the Dell.” Dave (Adam’s dad) used to sing it and it was their song. His mom thinks otherwise, but Adam’s dad insists the song was written for them. To prove his point, Dave asked Adam to say his name. Adam replied: Adam Farmer.
Facing a hill, Adam gets off the bike and pushes it. He must pee, but he doesn’t want to go into the woods, where there are spiders, snakes, and maybe dogs. Going downhill, Adam gets back on his bike, still singing “The Farmer in the Dell.”
Chapter 6 Summary
In the transcript, Brint asks Adam if he’s upset. He wonders if Adam took his medicine. Adam doesn’t reply. He feels like he’s “outside” himself, observing himself and Brint. Adam is unsure if Brint is a doctor. Brint makes Adam feel like a “target,” so Adam is glad to separate himself from himself. He feels smart to be able to go somewhere outside himself.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
The title of the novel I Am the Cheese is designed to inform the reader’s expectations as they start to read the opening section. This is closely associated with the key theme of Constructing and Manipulating Identity, as the reader seeks clues to the enigmatic identity statement of the title. The novel reveals these gradually in the first chapters as it is not until Chapter 5 that Adam sings “The Farmer in the Dell.” The novel then reveals a nostalgic context for the song, which reveals apparently simple and warm family connections. Dave jokingly wonders, “[W]hat other family has a theme song tailor-made for them?” (25), and Adam’s family constructs an identity around the nursery rhyme. However whimsically, they link their family to the farmer in the nursery rhyme.
The multiple narrative layers further the theme of Constructing and Manipulating Identity, especially in the first chapters as the reader orients themselves and seeks clues for the relationship between the narrative types. Adam can manipulate his identity in the chapters when he speaks in the first person. Brint and the third-person narrator who arrives in the tape transcript chapters also have a chance to shape Adam’s identity. The third-person narrator states, “[Adam] had stepped outside himself, departed, gone from this place and was outside looking in, watching himself and the doctor, if he was a doctor” (29). People can detach from their identities and become someone else. Identities change, and they’re uncertain. Brint could be a doctor, but he might not be a doctor.
The first section also establishes the theme of Human Reactions to Constant Threats and Fears. Cormier uses diction to foreshadow the truth about Adam and his family, creating dread and suspense. When they moved from Blount to Monument, Adam tells Brint, “It was spooky […] as if we were being chased, as if we were running away” (13). The words “spooky,” “chased,” and “running away” indicate precarity. As the reader learns, Adam and his family are indeed in hiding: They’re in a life-or-death situation. These fears are echoes by others. The older man at the gas station warns Adam, “[Y]ou can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys anymore,” adding, “[Y]ou can’t trust identifications, either. They can forge anything today—passports, licenses, you name it” (18). Identity relies on documents that people can construct, and people can make documents to hide their harmful aims. The capacity for regular deception turns the world into a menacing place. These comments also prefigure the later revelation about Adam’s identity and documents and will echo when it becomes clear that the journey is in his imagination. The old man’s fears are Adam’s own.
This patterning of the Human Reaction to Constant Threats and Fears also builds in these chapters through references to smell. On the bus, Adam remembers “the terrible smell of the exhaust” (12), and the dreadful smell links to their dire situation. Adam claims, “[M]y father always smelled of tobacco or smoke or the matches,” but his dad “doesn’t smoke” (13). Adam identifies his dad with something he ostensibly doesn’t do. He creates a paradoxical identity, and the incongruous smell of smoking foreshadows the truth that the later chapters will reveal.
Despite these challenges, Adam continues on his journey. The journey is the focus of the first section and is presented as a real journey at this stage. As a result, the theme of The Journey as Psychological Persistence and Resilience has a face-value meaning in these chapters, before the imaginary framing of journey becomes apparent. Adam’s character is presented as optimistic, tenacious, and brave: he realizes, “This is ridiculous, this trip to Rutterburg” (7), but he thinks of his dad, and he keeps going. To complete his journey, Adam demonstrates determination. Though his bike is simple—it’s not the kind of bike built for long trips—he remains committed to visiting his dad. This commitment prefigures the novel’s treatment of family bonds and loss. Adam’s resilience is linked to his pursuit of freedom and independence. On the bike, he feels in control. Adam says, “I don’t want to be confined to a bus. I want the open road before me, I want to sail on the wind” (6). Medicine symbolizes a lack of agency, and for this reason he rejects it. Adam considers taking medicine before his journey, but he concludes, “I wanted to do this raw, without crutches, without aid, alone” (7). When Adam first mentions medicine, the context is unclear. In the following transcript section, medicine in the hospital environment clearly represents dependency or control. When Brint asks, “Have you been administered your medicine today?” (29), Adam doesn’t answer. His reluctance mirrors his previous reluctance to take his medicine on the journey but is also a red herring, especially if the reader assumes that the journey is real and precedes the transcript chronologically. In fact, Adam’s medicine is the same medicine and his reluctance to take it on his journey is his wish to escape from Brint’s control.
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