underneath Guts

I always thought the major theme of Guts was like Chuck says, "the invisble carrot." The white elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. I think it's also about how we are all basically clueless about sex starting out, not knowing what to do, fumbling in the dark till we find something that works. But that might just be me...

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what karb said. basically, the hidden shit, not secrets but just things denied word form among families. yeah, that invisible carrot. there has to be a thing or two in your childhood that would embarrase you to hear aloud. that's what the story is about. showing three dudes' most embarrasing instances and all three had to do with masterbation. man, that story will fuck you up. but exodus is much worse, man that story fucked me up haha
-kabol

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Also, if you have access to the archived Chuck essays, go and check out the one he did with Guts. He breaks it down a lot better than I can as to it's different themes and "horses." I [i]think[/i] it was essay 4, but not entirely sure.

thanks, I see what you mean. so if you were to use one word it would be "embarresment", "shame" or maybe "isolation"? Feels like I really painted myself into a corner here, to illustrate Guts I mean. Hard to really find the core in this story and base all the imagery on that.

That's the problem with society. We're too ashamed of everything. Not till you can wank in the open, you will never trully be free

I'm pretty sure if Chuck were to describe it in one word he would use "horror"..That's what he set out to do, to write a short horror story unlike any other. I believe he mentions that in the essay..if not I am sure I read that somewhere else then.  But in that sense I would say that it is about horror. Not so much horrorifying to the reader but horrifying to the characters in the story. The closest you get to horror is the feeling of horrific empathy/sympathy for the characters. 

Please, god, let that line be used in something in the near future.