Eton Free Post "Think About Finny's and Gene's talk on pg 83? What do you make of this? What do you think of their friendship now?"

          Gene and Finny's friendship has gone downhill since the incident. However, Finny looks at it like nothing has happened. Even though Gene explicitly told Finny he jounced the branch deliberately, Finny still considers Gene as a friend and also a roommate. During their conversation Finny says "Roommates are roommates, even if they do have an occasional fight" (Knowles 83). Finny is either using this "roommates are roommates" thing as a sort of "Semper Fi" for the Devon School, or he is just unable to grasp the idea that Gene really did try to injure Finny. In either of these cases, Finny is still seen as the one who wants to make their friendship work. In the previous chapter, Gene says "I decided to put on his clothes... I felt like some nobleman... I was Phineas, Phineas to the life" (Knowles 62). This quote makes me wonder whether Gene wanted to be like Finny, and that is the reason he jounced the branch, or after he jounced the branch, he wanted Finny to live on through him. In both these cases, Gene is portrayed differently. In the first he is seen as an awful person, while in the second, he seems like Denzel Washington in the movie Glory when he picks up the United States flag after his comrade that was carrying it was shot. In this book, Finny would be the fallen comrade, Gene would be Denzel Washington, and Finny's charisma would be the United States flag. In the latter half of both cases with Gene and Finny, they both seem like they are trying to push their friendship as far as it can go.