The Best of Iggy

In Chapter 2, titled “The Wonderful Boy (Not Iggy),” Jeremy Greerson shows up to Iggy’s house wearing a scarf. This scarf symbolizes Jeremy’s apparent perfection. Iggy dislikes Jeremy, and finds the scarf hilarious because it makes Jeremy look older and overly put together—a stark contrast to Iggy’s simple striped shirt. Jeremy in fact embodies everything that Iggy is not: “Jeremy Greerson played the cello. Jeremy Greerson was a reader. Jeremy Greerson had the best manners ever. […] Everyone old thought Jeremy Greerson was the most wonderful boy in the world” (18). Iggy’s 11-year-old sister, Maribel, on the other hand, compliments Jeremy on the scarf: “Jeremy’s got style” (10). Feeling jealous, Iggy imagines shaving Jeremy’s head and cutting up his scarf, as shown in an illustration on Page 17. In this fantasy, Iggy symbolically sabotages the perfection that makes him feel inferior. He feels jealous that Maribel compliments Jeremy and that even his little sister Molly likes him and wants to play with him.

Iggy’s reaction to Jeremy’s apparent perfection conveys the theme of The Challenges of Growing Up. His sense of self is still developing, and Jeremy’s apparent perfection feels like a threat. In later illustrations, such as in the closing chapter of the novel, where the narrator jokingly tells readers they will never be as good as Jeremy, Jeremy is still portrayed wearing his scarf, reinforcing his image of unattainable perfection while at the same time suggesting that his perfection is a lie, and that deep down Jeremy is just as flawed as Iggy.