Eton: Question 1 and kind of but not really Question 2.

      Finny's fall off the tree, and his death, are at the very beginning and end of this book. With most books, the climax is at the middle of the book, but John Knowles put it towards the beginning. He did this because he did not want the story to be about Finny, he wanted it to be about Gene as we know him "dying." At the end of chapter 12 Gene says "I did not cry then or ever about Finny... I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case" (Knowles 194). I believe here, Gene is actually admitting to himself that he was the one that caused all of this. He finally is coming to a close, but this close caused Gene more pain than Finny's actual death. Gene also later says "I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there" (Knowles 204). He never reveals who this "enemy" was, I personally do not think that it was Finny, but it was Gene himself. He finally comes clean with himself that he was the one that caused Finny to fall and he was the one that got him so angry towards the end, and even though his best friend died, he gets rid of all his guilt that has been clinging to him for this past year, everything about the war being fake and the Olympics was finally all cleared up, so the Gene that we came to know and hate, died with Finny in the end.