Tuesday, May 5, 2020
(Assignment #10) At the top of page 155, the snowball fight culminates with everyone turning on Finny. Why does this happen here and why now? How does this moment foreshadow events later in the chapter? (Keira)
In chapter 11, Gene is returning from Lepers house and finds Finny and many other boys from Devon in the middle of a snowball fight near the river. Gene also notices that Finny now no longer is using crutches, instead he has a walking cast and cane. When Gene first reaches the groups of boys he is hesitant to join in, much like he is hesitant to join the war. Finny and the others pressure him to join into the game and he gives in. Later, Gene realizes that everyone has suddenly abandoned their teams and are now all against Finny, “Loyalties became hopelessly entangled. No one was going to win or loose after all” (Knowles, 154). This quote is significant because, when all of the boys team up against Finny, the reader later learns the it was foreshadowing the trial that occurred later that night. Because of Finny’s injury it was easy to gang up on him and take him down during the snowball fight, it was also easy to gang up on Gene the same way they did to Finny to try and get him to tell Finny that he jounced the branch.
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I feel like in a way, the snowball fight foreshadows people taking Finny down as soon as he's feeling better. At the time of the snowball fight, Finny's leg was doing very well. Like you said, everyone turned on Finny at the end because he is now an easy target, unlike before his injury. At the time of the trial, Finny has recovered from what Gene told him when he went to his house and he's trying his best to move past or deny the fact that he's now unable to play sports, or "crippled" in Brinker's words. Despite knowing that and the conversation he had with Gene, Brinker felt a need to take things into his own hands and make Finny face the facts. Although they may be ganging up on Gene, in a way they'e actually ganging up on Finny. The trial effected Finny deeply, as if he was the one they were coming for.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Keira that the snowball fight does foreshadow the trial later in the chapter. All the boys found it very easy to turn on Finny during the snowball fight, but soon realized during the trial they would be able to do the same thing to Gene. "Suddenly, he turned his fire against me, he betrayed several of his other friends..." (Knowles 154). This line played a big role to me when it came to the trial. The line had a very big connection when all of the boys turned on Gene. The trial affected both Gene and Finny, not just one of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Keira because during the snowball fight I think that the boys were able to take down Finny which they weren't able to do before he was injured, or when he was using crutches. Also like it said in the book, "Loyalties became hopelessly entangled” (Knowles, 154). This foreshadows everyone turning on Gene during the trial. But the like the second line says "no one was going to win or loose after all” (Knowles, 154). I think this foreshadows that when they turn on Gene they think that it will help Finny face the facts about the tree. But like it said, 'there won't be any winners' and I don't think that anybody in the scene will gain anything and most people will just be put in pain.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Keira that the snowball fight foreshadows the trial later on. In the snowball fight Finny was an easy target. He couldn't have been very mobile because he can't move well with his walking cast and cane. Since he was an easy target he was being ganged up on. In the trial the same thing pretty much happened with Gene. Gene was the easiest person to blame for this, and I also think it showed Finny what really happened. I think the trial may have affected Finny more than Gene in the end.
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