Assignment #9, What causes Gene to attack Leper? The answer needs to involve a literal and figurative exploration of what occurs here (middle 145). (Nic)

Gene attacks Leper because Gene still feels guilty for pushing Finny out of the tree, and when Leper brought it up, Gene was overtaken by emotion and attacked Leper. Alternatively, this attack could be seen as the physical manifestation of Leper’s mental breakdown. Gene had been traveling to Leper’s house in Vermont to save him, but when he gets there, something is off. Leper is acting very weird, and he just keeps getting more intense, to the point where he is insulting Gene. This eventually all culminates in Leper insulting Gene about pushing Finny off the tree and Gene attacking Leper. This is obviously because Gene still feels guilty about pushing Finny. Gene was caught very off guard when Leper accused him, and  you can tell that he immediately regretted his decision when he said “I’m terribly - it was a mistake.” This attack could also be seen as a representation of Leper’s journey in the Army. He started out fine, then he slowly started to decline into madness. After a couple of weeks, Leper had fallen into insanity, and eventually he snapped. He saw the corporal, but something was different about him, his face ”Kept changing into faces [Leper] knew from somewhere else.” This caused Leper to yell, then scream for other people to come look, this finally caused him to get discharged from the Army. This is represented by the scene where Leper is slowly becoming more intense with Gene, until he brings up Finny, and Gene snaps, just like Leper did in the Army.