Simone Question #1 Assignment #11

Is Finny's fall, and ultimately his death, something you can blame on Gene? Why or why not? If he is not to blame, then who is?

Throughout the book Finny plays many different rolls, power changing but always coming back to him, putting him in control. Finny's fall and ultimate death is something you can blame on Gene for many reasons. The first time Finny breaks his leg it is Gene who shakes the branch, "'I tried to tell you before, I tried to tell you when I came to Boston that time-' (Knowles 189)" This break creates him to be more fragile and clumsy, as well as making it difficult to move around with ease. When Finny falls the second time he is trying to run from the truth of Gene turning on him. Because of both incidents, caused mainly by decisions Gene makes or the truth about their flawed friendship, Finny death was Gene's fault. 

Abby: Page 178-end. Question 4: If Finny had survived his operation, do you think Gene and Finny could remain friends? Or do you think the friendship at this point is too broken?

        If Finny had survived his operation Finny and Gene would remain friends because Finny doesn't hate anyone. At the end of the book, Gene explains how everyone has their own ways to deal with the war but Finny's is different, "Only Phineas was never afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone" (Knowles 204). In this quote, Gene talks about how Finny was the only person who would ever get past the war and the hardships everyone else had because he had a special way of dealing with it which was that he never hated anyone, even the enemy. In this case in the book, Gene was the enemy because he shook the branch that Finny fell off of but even with that, Finny still would remain friends with Gene because he didn't hate anyone. The friendship was not too broken to fix because Finny kept on trying to figure out why Gene shook the branch and was trying to figure out if it was real or not. When Finny was talking to Gene about what happened, he realizes that he can understand and believe Gene because he has gotten angry in the past and done horrible things on impulse, "I do, I think I can believe that. I've gotten awfully made sometimes and almost forgotten what I was doing... Then that was it. Something just seized you. It wasn't anything you really felt against me, it wasn't some kind of hate you've felt all along. It wasn't anything personal" (Knowles 191). In this quote, Finny is trying to come up with excuses about why Gene did what he did to Finny on the branch and he tries to calm himself down with all these ideas. Finny was correct in when he was saying that Gene shook the branch because it wasn't anything personal but Gene felt too bad to try and make up any more excuses for what really happened. Although Finny and Gene have a complicated relationship, Finny is finding a way to forgive Gene for what he did to him  and Gene is trying to figure out a way to forgive himself.

Questions:
1) Do you think that Gene will ever forgive himself or do you think he already has? Why or why not?
2) Do you think Finny really believed Gene in that passage? Why or why not?

Ari Benkler- Does Finny's death surprise you? Chapters 12-13 Assignment #11

A Separate Peace is about coming of age and boys growing into men through the trial of the war and their own schooling and the challenges it offers them. Finny's injury means that he has no future in the war, which is the defining moment of the time, and so the only reasonable way for him to be in the story is dead, so that he cannot continue as a sad shadow of his former self, but merely as a memory, like in the poem about the young dead athlete. The story focuses on the futures of the boys and where they will go. The voice of maturity, the establishment, and responsibility in the last chapter, Brinker's father, asks Gene about his future, because he thinks that is the most important thing. "What are you enlisting in, son?" (Knowles 198). Brinker's father continues to give a lecture to Brinker and Gene about how important it will be to other people and to themselves what they did during the war, and how their futures will depend on their acts in the war. He says, "You have to do what you think is the right thing... people will get their respect for you from that... " (Knowles 199). By this Brinker's father means to say that they will regret it if they fail to participate actively in the war, and people would hold it against them and look on them as odd and somehow less worthy for it. Finny was not able to participate in the war, and so if he continued to live it would be only as a pale shadow of his former self, which would be depressing for him and for all those around him. He would be the poor young cripple with nowhere to go in life and nothing to do. That he died saved him from a terrible existence, and it was hardly surprising that John Knowles did not want the readers to see Finny as a useless man, broken and bitter at the destruction of his future. The best way from the story's point of view was for him to die.

Alex Daly question #2 chapters 12-13

"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) This quote is from the end of the book and shows that the end of the book was a little slower so that Gene could take in everything that happened. This is a very important part of the book but this is not the climax. The climax is towards the middle of the book. The climax is when Finny is very active before and right after he broke his leg. After this point in the book everything really slows down and gets a little bit more emotional. When Finny is the most active is the climax, before he broke his leg everyone seemed to have a lot more energy. Once Finny's leg is broken everything slows down and when he thinks that his leg seems to be fully healed the pace of the book picks up a little bit until he breaks again and then dies. This is why the climax is more towards the middle of the book. 

Galvin ch.12-13 pg.178-end Is Finny's fall, and ultimately his death, something you can blame on Gene? Why or why not? If he is not to blame, then who is?

Finny's fall and death isn't Gene's fault. Gene caused the original injury to Finny and immobilized him. As Finny was coming off this injury he rebroke his leg which eventually led to his death. Although the original injury was Gene's fault when Finny rebroke his leg it had little to do with Gene. Finny stormed out in a fit of rage during Brinker's "trial" "tonight we are investigating you"(Knowles 167). When confronted with the trail of what ruined Finny's life he stormed off in anger  and while going down the stairs he stumbled and rebroke it. Finny's death is no ones fault, it was an accident.

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.

Cliou question 1: 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?

In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene returns from visiting Leper, who had escaped from the army and is now hiding.  When Gene returns to the grounds of the Devon School he sees Finny and a bunch of boys in a Snowball fight.  At first Gene is just watching the other boys play but then Finny insists that Gene would be on his team.  After Gene joins they keep the war going until Finny turns on his team and the snowball fight becomes a free for all. On page 154, Gene narrates, “ Suddenly he turned on me, he betrayed several other of his friends; he went over to Brinker’s side for a short time enough to ensure that his betrayal of them would heighten the disorder.  Loyalties became hopelessly entangled” (Knowles). Then everyone turned on Finny. Everyone turned on him because he turned and betrayed his own teammates and started all the disorder.  I think this happens here because it is short of a preview of betrayal to Finny.  I feel like in the next couple of chapters everyone including Gene are going to betray Finny but in a much more serious way.  I think that Finny will do something that will make Gene jealous enough to betray and possibly hurt his best friend.   

What do you think will happen in the future; do you think Gene will betray Finny in some sort of way?