Tuesday, May 5, 2020
#3 Discuss Leper’s return and its impact on Gene and Finny before Brinker’s trial. What does Leper represent now that he is back at Devon and what conversation does his return trigger between Finny and Gene? (Antrias)
Discuss Leper’s return and its impact on Gene and Finny before Brinker’s trial. What does Leper represent now that he is back at Devon and what conversation does his return trigger between Finny and Gene?
Leper's return to the school was surprising to Gene. This may have been because of the fact that Leper entered the assembly room during Brinker's trial. Gene was not only surprised by Leper's entry but also his appearance. "He looked unusually well, his face was glowing" (Knowles 172). When Gene saw Leper in such a vulnerable state it was strange to Gene that Leper was almost like his old self again and his face seemed back to normal. After Gene got used to Leper being back Brinker decided to keep going with the trial. Brinker asked Leper what happened from his perspective at the tree. Leper tells the truth and of course, Phineas not wanting to relive this horrible memory exclaims, "I don't care, I just don't care" (Knowles 176). Now that the truth has come out there is an extreme amount of tension between Gene and Finny. Gene has been feeling guilty about the tree incident since the day it happened and he has tried to come forward to Finny about it. However, now that the truth has outed in a "proper court room" Finny just doesn't want to hear it. Finny angrily storms out of the assembly room because of all the built up emotions that have come out of his accident.
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I agree that Leper's return has caused some tension between Gene and Finny, for they have finally been able to overcome what has happened. Leper coming back was almost like a messenger coming to tell the real story about what happened. But even though he was revealing the truth, there is also a moment of hesitation for him as well, "Leper's face became guileful, his voice flat and impersonal. 'I don't mean to implicate myself. I'm no fool, you know.'" This shows that he really knows the answer to what happened, but he didn't want to reveal the truth in order to protect Gene.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Leper coming back has made the tension more obvious, but I feel like it was always there. Since the day Gene caused Finny to fall off the tree, the two haven't had a real conversation about what actually happened. The author writes, " 'What happened there at the tree? That goddam tree, I'm going to cut down that tree.' " (Knowles 65). Here Gene is trying to make it seem like he is clueless about what happened and the while he is doing his acting, Finny seems uninterested, almost like if he suspected something but didn't want to find out. Now that the truth is out and there is no doubt about what actually happened, he doesn't know how to feel.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Antrias that Leper's return to Devon increased the tension between Gene and Finny, as he is the only one who knows what truly happened during the incident. He poses even more of a threat to Gene and Finny now, as he has completely lost his mind and doesn't seem to care about what he says. I also think that Leper represents the chaos of the war going on outside of Devon. The fact that the war made Leper go insane forced Finny to accept that there really was a war going on.
ReplyDeleteFinny's coping mechanism is denial. An example of this is his outright denial on the war on 115: "'Don't be a sap' he gazed with cool self-possession at me, 'there isn't any war'" (115). He eventually recognizes the war when he hears about how Leper has changed, sarcastically saying "Sure there isn't any war" (158). He comes to terms with what he denies when he realizes that there is no running from it. This is what happened in the court room scene. He can no longer pretend that Gene didn't bounce the limb, and he is forced to face the fact that his "best pal" is the reason he will never be able to play sports, something he's good at and passionate about, ever again.
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