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Post by elizaneights on Oct 28, 2015 22:55:00 GMT
Gene seems to start out the flashback both hating and worshipping Finny at the same time. He first thinks that he and Finny are jealous of each other, but eventually realizes that he is only jealous of Finny and not the other way around. Gene also compares Finny to Lazarus being brought back to life by God when he is asleep on the beach and says he is "like a river God" when he is balancing on the canoe. He worships Finny and thinks of him as a kind of god. This may have caused Gene to think of Finny as an obstacle that he has to overcome, which could have motivated him to bounce the tree branch to make him fall. After Finny fell out of the tree, Gene saw him as being lowered to his level and not like a god he could never be as good as. Gene also doesn't know himself very well. After Finny fell off the tree, Gene didn't seem very sure about whether he did it on purpose or why he jounced the limb. When he was trying on Finny's clothes, he "became" Finny. Later, after Finny dies, Gene says that Finny's funeral felt like his own. This shows Gene's lack of identity and how Finny became a part of him that he had to let go, through Finny's death, for Gene to enter into adulthood.
Finny is very childlike throughout the book and constantly brings Finny farther back into childhood. Blitzball describes the childlike outlook Finny has on life. People compete, but there is no winner or loser. He doesn't think of anyone as his enemy, only friendly competition. Finny completely ignores the fact that there is anything bad in life. He dismisses the war and says it doesnt exist. This is a very childlike way of thinking and it prevented Gene from entering adulthood. It wasn't until he died that Gene could let this childlike point of view go and become an adult.
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Post by danvolpone on Oct 30, 2015 1:02:43 GMT
Also important to the story, especially the development (or lack thereof) of Gene and Finny, are the minor characters, most notably Leper and Brinker. Both characters help lead Gene toward adulthood. Leper helps to grow both Gene and Finny by suddenly making the jump from childhood to adulthood by enlisting in the ski troops. Although skipping the liminal state causes things to go poorly for Leper, causing him to go crazy, it is important to the growth of the main characters. When Leper returns from the war and has changed, Gene continues to discover the evil of the world. For Finny, this acts as the inciting incident, causing him to finally allow himself to realize that the war exists. Brinker, through his investigation into Gene intentionally causing Finny to fall from the tree, forces both boys to move toward adulthood. This pushes Gene to adulthood in two ways. First, he must admit to himself and deal with the fact that he is capable of the evil of forcing Finny to fall from the tree. Additionally, this directly leads to Finny falling down the stairs, Gene's epiphany moment. This pushes Finny toward adulthood, although he never reaches adulthood before his death, by forcing him to acknowledge the evil that his best friend is capable of and how it has affected him. Minor characters impact the characterization of Finny and Gene by impacting, and often causing, their development.
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Post by sydniemarkowitz on Nov 1, 2015 14:12:00 GMT
Leper was definitely and important character, although he did not have a huge role. Leper was always a childish character in that he we always day dreaming and adventuring around campus. It was childish for him to enlist just because he saw a video, in reality enlisting in the army is such a important decision that should be thought about carefully. By enlisting right away, and not giving himself time to mature properly, he skipped the liminal stage as a whole. By skipping the liminal stage, it makes the reader wonder what would happen to Finny, another childlike character, if he went straight into the war. Overall, Leper brought out what happens to people who want to grow up too fast.
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Post by owenleber on Nov 1, 2015 15:39:15 GMT
In the beginning of the story, Gene and Finny seem to be the most important or influential characters, and Knowles seems to really work on characterizing them indirectly to the reader. One example of this may be seen when Gene says that Finny goes by the ideology that "you always win at sports" - meaning there are never any losers. This shows that Finny is very child like in is perspective on then world. However, towards the middle/end of the book Knowles switches his focus to Leper and Brinker (who isn't even introduced until chapter 6). I think the reasoning behind Knowles doing this may have been to set up a base of knowledge of the situation with Genre and Finny and then really add the intricate details and other aspects of the story deeper in. He shows Leper as someone who is almost like an outcast from the group, not because he wants to be but rather because that is just how he is/it happens. An example of this can be seen in chapter 6 on page 74 Gene says "Leper, luckless in his last year ... had been moved to a rom lost in an old building off somewhere in the trees toward the gym." This quote showed me how Leper is outcasted not necessarily by his actions but because of the situations he is put in. And as we've already discussed in class, this is a perfect role for him, given his name of LEPER.
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Post by Emily Shea on Nov 1, 2015 20:57:27 GMT
This shows Gene's lack of identity and how Finny became a part of him that he had to let go, through Finny's death, for Gene to enter into adulthood. Finny is very childlike throughout the book and constantly brings Finny farther back into childhood. Blitzball describes the childlike outlook Finny has on life. People compete, but there is no winner or loser. He doesn't think of anyone as his enemy, only friendly competition. Finny completely ignores the fact that there is anything bad in life. He dismisses the war and says it doesnt exist. This is a very childlike way of thinking and it prevented Gene from entering adulthood. It wasn't until he died that Gene could let this childlike point of view go and become an adult. I completely agree with this idea Eliza! Gene obviously had a large dependency on Finny which caused him to be easily influenced. Gene continuously makes strides towards adulthood, but as previously stated was almost always pulled back into childhood by his best friend. In order for this to be a true "coming of age" story it was inevitable that Finny needed to die. A part of Gene died the day Finny lost his life, it was his innocence. By losing this, Gene was forced into adulthood and his eyes were truly opened to the cruelties of the adult world. |
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