Chapter 8: What does the conversation about enlisting reveal about Finny and Gene’s relationship (p107-108)? Provide at least two specific examples. - Ollie McNamara
In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, while Finny is out of school due to
his leg injury, Gene decides that he wants to enlist in the war. When Finny finds this out
he becomes very irritated with Gene and exclaims, “‘Enlist!’ Cried Finny at the same time.
His large and clear eyes turned with an odd expression on me. I had never seen such a look
on the before.’” (107) Without the ability to play sports, Finny feels lost in his life and is
jealous that Gene can go to the war. When Gene realizes this he responds to Finny telling him
it was just a crazy idea anyway, and even shames Brinker to make Finny feel better:
“Enlist! What a nutty idea. It’s just Brinker wanting to get there first again. I wouldn’t
enlist with you if you were General MacArthur’s eldest son.”(108) With this new dynamic
in Finny and Genes' relationship, Gene is compromising his wants and needs to make Finny
feel better. This reveals that Gene still feels guilty about ‘causing’ Finny to fall off the tree,
and feels that he owes it to Finny to be there for him. Throughout the novel, John Knowles
has explored the battle between internal and external battles, and although Gene isn’t going
to war to fight in the eternal battle, he is facing a much harder internal battle staying at
the Devon school with Finny.
How much will Gene sacrifice to please Finny in the future?
Will this dynamic ever get to a point where it blows up in everyone's faces?
How Jealous will Finny get of Gene?
I think that as the novel continues, Gene will lose almost all of his identity to Finny. Through their enlisting conversation, it is obvious that Finny fears Gene will move on now that he can not keep up. Doing insane things and a larger then life persona are important parts of Finny's character, and this was often showcased through his excellence in sports. He thinks that, now that he is no longer able to like that reality, Gene might no longer want to be his friend. Previously, Finny pushed Gene out of his comfort zone, as seen in the Summer Suicide Squad, and always was at him to live life to the fullest, now that he no longer is able to do this he could lose relevance in Gene's life. Finny is the kind of character who is described to be everyone one’s friend, the type of person everyone laughs with but never cares to really get to know them. He is only truly close to Gene, this fulling his fear of rejection by his only good friend. I expect that this will continue until the final major event when something will occur to shatter this situation.
ReplyDeleteHow will Gene and Finny’s relationship change now that Finny has returned?
After seeing a glimpse into the new dynamic of Gene and Finny’s friendship, it has become clear how unsafe their relationship is going to become. Up until Finny’s fall, Gene is constantly jealous of Finny, however in chapter 8, we started to notice that Finny is now the one who’s jealous of Gene. Also, every decision Gene makes from this point on is a decision that would help Finny. Gene’s guilt is hurting himself and his friendship because he wants to be there for Finny. Now that Finny is back, I think his power over Gene will increase as he is scared of losing his friendship with Gene. The dynamic of this friendship cannot workout, and is only going to hurt both of their journeys to adulthood.
DeleteDo you think Gene is going to end up making new friends?
I think this dynamic will get to the point where it blows up in everyone's faces. It's clear that Gene will sacrifice everything for Finny in the name of his guilt; when he's faced with Finny's fear of being left behind, he decides to not enlist, and when Finny demands that he train for the Olympics, Gene follows his lead without question. It's clear that Gene wants other things and is tempted to refuse, but once he catches sight of Finny's vulnerability, the vulnerability that he feels has been caused by the incident, he gives in. Gene isn't going to stop this, and it's clear that Finny is too far out of his mind to relinquish his hold on Gene, so I suspect that they will continue running this course until it blows up in their faces.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think Finny thinks the war is fake?
Why do you think Gene accepts and plays along with Finny's theories about the war?
When Finny first got injured during the summer session, Gene felt as though his only purpose was to live out Finny's athletic hopes since he wasn't able to do it himself. At the beginning of the winter session, when Finny wasn't there, Gene didn't focus on "avenging" Finny, as he became the assistant crew manager and even considered the possibility of enlisting. Now that Finny has returned, Gene feels guilty about not being the surrogate for his friend's dreams. Along with training for Finny's goal of the Olympics, Gene is following along with Finny's conspiracy theories regarding the war. This guilt driven attitude of Gene's may not be deliberate, he may think that he is just being a good friend and laughing at his friend's jokes, but subconsciously, Gene feels guilty about Finny's injury.
DeleteDo you think Finny will fully recover from his injury?
I agree with the part that Gene will always feel guilty about Finny's injury and a way of copping with that or trying to make Finny feel better is Gene training for the Olympics with Finny as his coach and being as nice as possible to Finny. But the bottom line is Finny well never recover from his injury fully. Not only physically but mentally. Finny was a star athlete who held many records and had won championships at Devon. But now all of this will be cut short because of the injury and he is only in high school. Obviously we will never recover physically because the doctor said he would be lucky to walk again. But knowing Finny himself that he could have been so much more and gone to the Olympics. I think that is something that Finny will never be able to recover from.
DeleteI think that as the novel continues, Gene will sacrifice more and more of himself to please Finny. It is clear that he still feels bad about injuring Finny and he know feels that it is his duty to make it up to Finny in whatever way Finny sees fit. In Gene's new alternate reality, he is essentially Finny's slave. He listens and agrees to become an olympic athlete when Finny asks and begins to believe Finny's ideas about the war. John Knowles does a good job of showing how Gene is currently loosing his internal battle against guilt and is beginning to subject himself to all of Finny's ideas and plots without argument.
DeleteI believe that in the future, Gene will sacrifice his whole self to Finny. There is still guilt in the back of Gene's mind of what happened at the tree, and he will continue to have this guilt especially because Finny is back. As a result of this guilt, Gene will end up having to please Finny, and by pleasing him he must become Finny. Also, we learn in this chapter that Finny's goal was to make it to the olympics. This new news makes Gene feel more guilty about what he caused and how he ruined Finny's new goal. Since Gene now feels more guilt, I believe that he will sacrifice himself to Finny and feel obligated to fix what he did to him by becoming him.
ReplyDeleteWill this dynamic ever get to a point where it blows up in everyone's faces?
ReplyDeleteI think that there will a point in the novel that the dynamic of Gene trying to make up to Finny, will eventually cause some sort of damage. But I also don’t think this will happen quickly. What I predict will happen is he will go along with Finny, and try to do whatever he wants him to do. And if that means he has to try for the Olympics, he’ll do it, only because he has all the weight and guilt from pushing him off the tree.
But what will eventually happen is he’ll get so caught up in that, that he won’t focus on anything that makes him, him. For example, Finny has always focused almost all of his time on his sports, and way less on his education. While Gene does the exact opposite. The issue that might come up is that Gene no longer focuses on his education, which takes a huge part of his personality away. The issue he’ll then have is trying to get it back.
How do you think Gene will balance helping Finny, and himself?
How might he try to change back?
How far do you think Gene will get before he realizes his mistake.
I think Gene will attempt to balance helping Finny while doing everything that he wants to do, but I don't think it will work. Finny's needs/wants are so much different than Gene's. Finny wants to skip class, train Gene, party, and do anything to have fun, while Gene is a lot more low-key and just wants to do well in school and stick to order. Before, Gene was more or less able to balance both of their desires, but now that Finny has a broken leg and can't satisfy himself, Gene has to do a lot more for him. Examples of how Gene will bend to the will of Finny occur everywhere throughout this chapter including choosing not to enlist, skipping school, doing the pull-ups, running around Finny's course, etc. I believe that this will keep getting worse and will affect Gene's more important decisions. I think that Gene will realize it, like he did throughout this chapter, but it will be too late and Finny's needs will become too strong that Gene can't say no anymore.
DeleteBased on this reading, it seems as though Gene is willing to do anything to make Finny happy. As soon as he sees that Finny doesn't want him to enlist, the thought of enlisting becomes absurd to him. In the previous chapter, Gene seemed to have already made up his mind about enlisting, but he switches his opinion the second that he sees that Finny is shaken. Knowles is using Finny's return and Gene's sacrifices for him to show Gene's guilt. Because Gene feels guilty about what happened to Finny he feels as though he is indebted to Finny and is therefore willing to sacrifice most anything for him. This will lead to an unhealthy dynamic between the two of them, which will most likely end badly for everyone.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the novel we have seen instances where Gene has given up his true identity because of Finny. Finny, intentionally or not, has a way of controlling Gene and everything he does. Gene is completely oblivious to this because after hurting Finny he is filled with guilt. This guilt is making him do things for Finny to compensate with what happened. At some point Gene must act for himself and think about what he really wants. Immediately when Finny returned he made Gene skip his first class of the day. Gene didn't do what's best for him and just went back to following Finny around like he used to. He starts to become more and more like Finny and less like himself. At one point I think Gene will come to a realization that he isn't doing this for himself, he's doing it for Finny.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you do in this scenario, be a nice friend, or do what's best for you?
After Gene mentions the war to Finny he starts talking about how the war isn't real. Gene slowly begins to believe this and then gets discouraged from the war and thinks more about what Finny wants him to do. Do you think Gene will still follow through on enlisting, or not?
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DeleteI don't think Gene will follow through on enlisting. In this reading, John Knowles tells the readers that Finny was interested in the 1944 Olympics before he was injured. I think Gene will put the thoughts of war beside. He is starting to not even believe in war anymore because of Finny's theory of the fat, old, and rich men trying to contain the future generation. I predict Gene will train extremely hard for the Olympics with Finny's help to make himself proud but also make up for the irreversible damage he did to Finny and the dreams of his he destroyed in a matter of seconds.
DeleteGene is slowly becoming Finny: his athleticism, his beliefs, and his personality. Will it come to the point where Gene is such a mirror of Finny that he has trouble finding his own identity?