As Gene is returning to Devon after his summer break back home, he decides to make a pit-stop at his best friend Finny’s house. This was no light-hearted, friendly visit, though, it was a visit to finally settle the air with Finny. Before summer break, Finny had severely broken his leg, after falling from a tree, this break was bad enough to the point where Finny could never play sports again. Finny was an elite athlete at Devon, so this was obviously devastating news to him, but we never see him down about it, he keeps his head up strong through his recovery. What Finny doesn’t know, though, is that Gene was actually the one to push him off of the tree, causing his leg to break. Gene has come to Finny’s house to tell him this secret that he’s been keeping and to apologize. When Gene does break the news to him, we see something that we haven’t seen before, a break in Finny’s cheerful, animated personality. He starts to get more aggressive toward Gene saying threats like, “I’m going to hit you if you don’t sit down” (Knowles 70) and “I’ll kill you if you don’t shut up.” (Knowles 70) But Gene quickly tries to switch up the conversation, and after a moment of awkward silence, he does just that. Gene did a good job in owning up to Finny and that was definitely the correct move, but Gene did not handle the situation after he told Finny well at all. When Finny started to threaten Gene, Gene didn’t try to defuse the conversation at all, but instead just ended up adding more wood to the fire! For example, when Finny said, “I’m going to hit you if you don’t sit down.” (Knowles 70) Gene replied with, “Hit me! You can’t even get up! You can’t even come near me!” (Knowles 70) It’s pretty obvious that this is the exact opposite of what somebody should do in this situation, Gene should be trying to calm Finny down. If I were in Gene’s shoes, I would probably try to say something like, “ I’m sorry.” or “I don’t know what I was thinking.” or maybe, just listen to Finny and sit down! Gene and Finny will make it through this bump in their friendship, but I think that’s going to take effort from both sides, once Finny calms down and Gene can come up with a better apology, hopefully this fight can be put to rest.
Will Finny and Gene be able to be friends again? Why was Finny being so aggressive with Gene? Do you think Gene did a good job apologizing? What would you have done if you were in Gene’s shoes?
If I were in Gene's shoes, I wouldn't have told Finny, especially if he still hadn't recovered. What Finny needs in such a difficult time is a "best pal". By telling Finny what really happened, Gene weakened, if not completely ended, their friendship, leaving Finny without much-needed support. While it might have been dishonest and would leave Gene feeling guiltier, keeping Finny blissfully unaware of the truth, at least while he healed, would have been better for Finny. Now, Finny has to deal with both his leg and the fact that his best friend betrayed him.
ReplyDeleteIf he didn't tell him, that would be worse. He'd have to live with the guilt his whole life while Finny didn't know he was still best friends with the person who ruined his life. If Gene decided to tell him later on, it would probably make him a lot more upset and he'd have to recover all over again. You might see Gene not telling Finny as him doing Finny a favor and keeping his best interest at mind, but if that was the case, Gene would have to just drop Finny as a friend.
DeleteI agree with Aya, Finny would be hurt a lot more if he figured it out later, which he probably would have because Gene wouldn't have been able to handle the guilt much longer. Also Finny wasn't happy or completely unaware of the truth, he had his suspicions too and almost said what he thought happened, but didn't want to ruin their friendship.
DeleteI agree with Nic, Gene dropped a huge bomb on Finny and left without even apologizing for his actions and discussing what happened. Telling Finny might’ve been the right thing to do, but it hurt him more than his injury and made the whole situation harder on him. If Gene told him differently and addressed it correctly, it might’ve had less of a negative effect on Finny. Either way, finding out your “best pal” is the reason you’ve lost the ability to do your favorite thing in life forever isn’t going to be easy to swallow no matter what Gene says to him. I wonder how things will be when Finny returns to Devon.
ReplyDeleteRight now it is very hard to see what should have been done, morally. But I think that Gene telling Finny as soon as he could, even though it hurt him more at the time, was the best option. Because even though Gene thought he could sleep easily the guilt kept seeping in and it was only a matter of time until he had to tell Finny. This way Finny was hurt emotionally, but I think that the hurt that he feels now would just be further amplified if Finny had been around Gene for a while at school when Gene was keeping it a secret. While Gene could have handled the apology part a lot better, I think that he just couldn't keep the secret any longer and he felt that he should have been punished for what he did and getting hit by Finny would start to make things even between them, even though it just ended up hurting Finny more.
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