Christopher "Chris" Chambers is one of the four boys from protagonist faction group circle of friends, serving as the deuteragonist in the short story The Body from Different Seasons, as well as the film Stand by Me, based on the story. In Stand by Me, he is portrayed by River Phoenix in the film and instead of having lived in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine (which is the case in The Body), his hometown of Castle Rock was stated to be in Oregon instead of Maine.
Chris grew up in a family of alcoholics and is often looked down upon by the entire town based solely on this association, despite not actually possessing any of their general ill nature himself.
Plot[]
During the Labor Day Weekend of 1959 (1960 in The Body) at 12 years old, Chris sets off alongside his closest friends Gordie LaChance, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio to find the body of a boy their age named Ray Brower who attended school in a neighboring town, Chamberlain. He had been reported missing and Vern's brother's best friend Charlie Hogan had confided in him that the boy Ray Browers was indeed dead as a result of a passing train that had hit him whilst he was out picking blueberries near Back Harlow Road.
On their way to find Ray Browers' body, Chris confided in Gordie about his anger and frustration with being treated like the rest of his family, even though he had never done anything to earn such a reputation personally. Ultimately, Chris and the others finally located the corpse and faced off against his brother and the hoodlum gang which also included Vern's older brother. Through Gordie's courageous actions, they saved the body and made the decision to just make an anonymous phone call reporting Ray Brower (in The Body, it was the hoodlums who made the anonymous call).
As he grew up, he remained friends with Gordie until college, despite their friendship with Vern and Teddy fading during high school. He, with Gordie's help, managed to let go of much of his anger towards his family image and put in a tremendous amount of effort in high school - enough to eventually become accepted into university.
Chris died in a fast-food restaurant as the result of a fatal stabbing he suffered while trying to stop a fight. In The Body, Chris was, at that time showing incredible promise as a college student. In Stand By Me, Chris had succeeded in law in the college courses he took and had ultimately become an attorney before being killed.
His death led to an older Gordie at the 'ripe old age of 34' getting the hard material to write a story based on them, even detailing his killing.
Personality[]
Chris is charismatic, complex, and conflicted. Chris is from a family of social outcasts and criminals, and so people assume that he will grow up to be just like them. But Chris has a good head on his shoulders and could easily succeed in school if he wanted to apply himself.