Gene's visit to the infirmary leaves him on edge, this feels realistic because everyone can relate to the feeling of not being able to say something they know they should. After falling from the tree, Finny shatters his leg. People keep talking to Gene about Finny's injury but nobody suspects him. After a while, Dr. Stanpole tells Gene that Finny is finally ready for visitors and that he will never be able to play sports again. Hearing this, Gene bursts into tears but the doctor says he has to be tough for Finny's sake. When Gene goes in to see Finny, rather than telling his version of the events, he asks Finny what he remembers before he fell. In short, Finny says he has the notion that it was Gene's fault but then shakes away the idea saying it would be ridiculous. Gene decides to tell Finny what happened but just at that moment Dr. Stanpole comes in and rushes him out. In this scene, Finny acts very calm, he doesn't yell at Gene or himself. He just accepts the way things are. For instance, when Gene thinks Finny was to pull Gene down with him, "I flinched violently away from him. '“To drag me down too!” [Finny] kept looking vaguely over my face. “To get hold of you, so I wouldn’t fall off.”' Here when Finny could have been suspicious or angry, he feels absolutely nothing towards this. This scene is realistic in the way that Ginny was able to lie but unrealistic in the way a person would react right after their leg was shattered and their athletic career was ruined.
I agree with Ava that it is hard to admit the truth to yourself especially when the person who took the fall doesn't want to blame you. I think a big impact in Gene feeling so guilty was that until he met with Finny in the infirmary he wasn't told exactly what had happened. All Gene heard about Finny was that “one of his legs … had been ‘shattered’ ” (Knowles 61). Since what he was told was so vague it allowed him to interpret the damage he caused in many ways. When Gene realized that “shattered” meant that Finny would no longer be able to play sports he knew that he needed to admit to Finny that it was all his (Gene’s) fault. The realistic part of this situation is that at the same time you want to be honest with the person you caused trouble to you also want to protect the relationship. At the same time, you also don't want the honesty to further damage the person emotionally. For Gene finding the balance was hard especially because Finny didn’t want to blame Gene.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alisa. At the infirmary Gene is about to tell Finny that he purposefully caused his injury but is then shooed away by the doctors and Finny ends up going home because he gets much more sick. Gene visits Finny at his house as he's heading back to Devon and resorts to telling Finny right then. Finny's response is, "Of course you didn't do it...Sit down." (Knowles 70) Finny doesn't believe that Gene would do something that coldhearted and he asks Gene to sit down so that he'll stop acting ridiculous and they can actually get a chance to talk about it. Finny repeatedly tells Gene to sit down, but then when Gene insists on his selfish actions and the motivation behind them Finny yells at Gene, "Go away. I'm tired and you make me sick. Go away." (Knowles 70) Finny is disgusted by what Gene did to him and doesn't want to see his 'friend' anymore. This is when Gene is hit with the full blown guilt of what he had done to Finny, and how this will impact their friendship in the future.
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