Their mutual friend and classmate Brinker Hadley insinuates that he suspects that Gene may have purposely caused Finny’s accident. When Finny returns to school, the two continue their friendship as Gene grapples with his conscience. Gene, consumed with guilt and self-doubt, tries to confess, but Finny doesn’t believe him and becomes distraught at the suggestion that Gene hurt him on purpose, so Gene hides his culpability. Suddenly, the most promising athlete on campus will be lucky if he ever walks again.
In a burst of resentment and anger, Gene jostles the branch that both boys are standing on, causing Finny to fall and shatter his leg. One night, Gene realizes that his ongoing competition with his friend has been entirely one-sided. Finny and Gene form a secret “suicide society” that requires them to jump from the tree on a nightly basis while the rest of the society members watch. To the awe of his classmates, Finny completes the stunt, goading Gene to do the same. It has become a part of the senior training regimen for boys to climb a particular tall tree near the river and jump from an extremely high branch. One summer evening, Finny decides that he and Gene should take on a challenge that no underclassman has. For Gene, his relationship with Finny-as with the friendships between most boys at the Devon School-is complicated by competitiveness.įinny, who is charming, athletic, and reckless, constantly challenges Gene to take risks and push himself. They are sixteen and too young to enlist in the military or be drafted, but are on the cusp of the final year at school in which the curriculum focuses in earnest on training boys for the military. In the summer of 1943, Gene and Phineas (or “Finny”) are roommates and best friends. Gene returns to campus fifteen years after graduating to confront and process the sites of traumatic incidents during a period he describes as the most formative of his life. Gene Forrester, the novel’s narrator, relates the events of his senior year at the Devon School, beginning in the summer of 1943.
0 kommentar(er)
