Gene attacks Leper because Gene can't deal with the guilt of what happened during the incident with Finny. Gene goes to Leper's house as a friend to help Leper out, but when he gets there he slowly begins to find out what Leper has gone through and what he became, Psychotic. Leper is going through a rant commanded by his mental state on page 145 saying things like "You were always a savage underneath" and "like that time you injured him for life" (Knowles 145). Gene has been suppressing the memory of the incident with Finny and didn't even think of it when he was with Finny. When Leper goes through his rant Gene can deal with many shots towards who he is, but Leper says straight to him it was his fault Finny was injured. Gene can't deal with the guilt put on him by this statement and instead of an act of sorrow Gene acts aggressively towards the Leper because he brought it up.
Is this a new side of Gene we will see more often? Will he act more on impulse then rationality?
The reason that Gene attacks Leper is his dissapointment. The boys at Devon made up all kinds of high and hopeful stories about Leper and his successes, going so far as to say, "...that it was not the Big Three but the Big Four who were running the war." (Knowles 126). In this they let their imaginations run away with them, because they didn't know anything about the war. When Gene came and saw the emotional wreck that Leper had become, he was so dissapointed and dismayed at what the war could do to a person that he attacked Leper in dismay, not because of anything Leper did, but merely because he was at hand and easy to attack.
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