I was wondering what everyone thought of Gene in pgs 49-60. To me, that section really showed how obnoxious Gene was and how nice Finny was. I was also wondering what everyone thought about how Finny and Gene just escaped from campus, spent the night on the beach and didn't even get in trouble! It seemed really weird to me because this school seems to be really serious about academics and discipline. My last question is why do you think Gene kicked Finny off the tree? I think that it's because Gene wants to discontinue Finny's success at sports. What do you guys think?
answer to christine lci i think that most people didn't think that much of Gene because he was just a follower, so just like how Gene didn't discribe the people who followed Finny no one else took notice of him. i think that they would have gotten in trouble but because as we have seen in the last chapter or two finny is good at getting away with anything. so my guess is that they would have but they didn't also they didn't miss class so not so bad i guess. i thought Gene kicked Finny off the tree because he was jealous of Finny but i don't think it was because he wanted to discontinue Finny's success in sports. i thought it more had to do with the line "i said nothing, my mind was exploring the new dimensions of isolation around me. any fear i had ever had of the tree was nothing beside this. it wasn't my neck, but my understanding which was menaced. he had never been jealous of me for a second now i knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us. i was not of the same quality as he." i think he got really scared because he wasn't the same quality as finny so he just got really upset about. by the way Gene didn't kick finny off of the tree he jiggled the branch they were standing on in was that made him fall.
Gene was always had a hidden jealousy of Finny, and there have been many clues throughout the book about this such as Gene always wanting Finny to get in trouble. Finny is just who Gene wants to be. There is a kid like this at every school who gets along with everyone and is good at sports. I think Gene did push out of tree for two reasons:
1) Gene has kept all of his jealous contained and at one point it was inevitable that he would blow up.
2) There hasn't been building tension, and this is a good semi-climax
3) The emphasis on Finny saving his life in the tree.
I had a couple of questions about the section 61-71. My first question was: How can Gene get away with being late to the fall term at Devon? I know that he and Finny would always break the rules, but this isn't the summer session anymore. Doesn't he have any parents that will get called from the school and be worried? Wouldn't the school be worried? I don't get how he can get away with that.
My second question was: When Gene went to see Finny, and confessed about pushing him off of the tree, why did he get mad and insult Finny. On page 70 Finny says, "I'm going to hit you if you don't sit down," and Gene reiterates "Hit me! You can't even get up! You can't even come near me!" I just thought that that was very mean and insulting to Finny. I didn't think that he would do something like that, but i didn't think he'd push Finny off of the tree so....
1) I think that he can't get away with it. he most like will get in trouble for being a day late. I also suppose that they would call his parents but the school may wait a day or two longer just incase that he got delayed or something.
2) the reason I think that gene insulted Finny is that Finny wasn't believing him so he got upset about it. also I suppose that he wanted Finny to realize what he (Gene) had done to him. Gene wanted him (Finny) to be mad at him. It's kind of what little kids do because you know if one of the little kids hurts the other they usually say, "you can punch me if that will make you feel better." I think that what Gene almost wants because it will take away his guilt.
Answer to Nick: I think the reason why Gene insulted Finny was because he might have felt embarrassed and extremely guilty for what he did to Finny and rather than being sad, it was easier for Gene to get angry and Finny was the one Gene could take in out on because Finny was weaker in that moment than Gene was.
My question is why at the end of the section Gene and Finny seemed back to being friends? It seemed like they had forgotten the conversation/argument they had just had and were back to talking about light things ("I never sleep much on trains..."Don't worry about it.".."I think I'd better get to the station.").
It just confused be because it seemed like it was one of the climaxes of the book, and then it seemed to have not even happened.
I don't understand why they seemed like friends again. Gene walked in and they started talking to each other like they never left one another. Why didn't Finny take it when Gene told him that he jounced the limb for him to fall? He just won't take it. I would have been mad at Gene but happy that I was also alive if I were Finny. I understand Gene is his best friend and that might be hard to accept, but he has to realise that Gene is telling the truth. Their relationship is too weird to me.
I think it's important to stress that Finny is a very innocent person. His view of the world is very innocent, which is very significant to his character. For him to suddenly realize that his best friends jealousy is so strong that he would try to hurt him, and to be told so suddenly by Gene would be hard to accept. Here's my question: Why, in the next section, does Gene think that his fight with Quackenbush was in some way for Finny? Does it connect to how he told Finny what he did, or that Finny can't play sports again?
on page 73 i was wondering why "What We Owed Devon" was capitalized. To me it seemed to make the point that it was important, but i did not understand why. I also wondered what people thought of the quote pg. 73 We had thought of what Devon owed us, an we had taken all that and much more." this reminded me of the quote from the beginning pg 30 "We spent that summer i complete selfishness,I'm happy to say" another quote that i wondered about was pg 75 "The Devon school was aside these two rivers" i am wondering why it is set off from the rest of the words on the page by being its own paragraph, is it just to place emphasis on the symbol?
Does anyone else have thoughts on the beginning of chapter 6, "Peace had deserted Devon."? I know that later in the chapter, he talks about how he saw war in everything: football players looked like they were actually trying to kill each other, etc. But what does the title really mean? So far I see themes of peace and war in three things: the war itself, Gene's relationship with Finny, and Devon.
I was also confused by the fight with Quackenbush, but after re reading it i thought that Gene felt as if he was defending Finny because he felt that because Finny was crippled or maimed by breaking his leg hat saying something to Quackenbush about it was defending him.
But i was also confused by how quickly gene got angry and tat he slapped Quackenbuh. This seemed very out of character to me, and i did not understand why gene now has such a short fuse.
(86-102) In this section, I was a little confused with Gene and Brinker's relationship. Were they already friends? It seemed to me like they became friends in this section because Gene talked about how much they did together. I was shocked when Brinker accused Gene of making Finny fall, I didn't think that anyone would accuse him because they were best friends. At the end of this section, I couldn't tell if Gene was sad that Finny came back or not. It seemed like Gene was happier with him gone, and that he was more of his own person, and I think that he liked that, what did you guys think?
(86-102) I dont understand the first couple lines of chapter 7 when Gene says, "I had taken a shower to wash off thesticky salt of theNaguamsett River -going into the Devn was like taking a refreshing shower itself, you never had to clean up after it, but the Naguamsett was something else intirely. I had never been in it before; it seemed appropriate that my baptism there had taken place on the first day of this winter session, and that I had been thrown into it in the middle of a fight. I know that is an important but I dont know how it is. Does it have to do with Gene's relationship with Finny? Or is it like Gene starting a new life? I dont know how to inturprate it. To answer Callie yes I think that Gene started to become friends with Brinker at the begining of this chapter I dont think he was before. Gene never really seemed to talk about him having friends before besides Finny it was like Finny was his only friend but now he is gone Gene is branching out and noticing other people that he didnt before.
(86-102) I didnt understand the fist couple lines of chapter seven. When Gene says, "I had taken a shower to wash off the sticky salt of the Naguamsett River- going into the Devon was like taking a refreshing shower itself,you never had to clean up after it, but the Naguamsett was something else entirely. I had never been in it before; it seemed appropriate that my baptism there had taken place on the first day of this winter session, and that I had been thrown into it, in the middle of a fight. I know that this is important but I dont understand why. Is it describing Gene and Finny's relationship or is it talking about Gene having a new start? To answer Callies question I think that Brinker and Gene became friends in this chapter not before. Before Gene never seemed to have any friends but Finny, Finny did but Gene didnt. But now Finny is gone Gene is starting to notice people and branch out.
My question is why, on page 100, does Brinker get so frustrated and say: "Everybody in this place is either a draft-dodging Kraut or a nat-u-ral-ist! I'm giving it up, I'm going to enlist. Tomorrow." It seems really sudden and I don't really understand his hostility towards Leper. He seemed to have strong opinions on staying in school and graduating, so it's weird that he would just throw them away.
Answer to Amelia's question: I think Gene says this because it's sort of a "rebirth" (or baptism) for him to be thrown into the river on the first day of the winter session as he is still mourning the summer session when he felt so many different things, and that we would be fighting while doing it because that's a new side of him he's discovering, one that's violent and angry with unhidden emotions. Gene's a new person as the year starts and he's feeling confused about what happened with Finny and what's going on in their relationship, so to answer your question I think it's describing both.
Ok...so I was wondering what the snow in the section 86-102 meant. I took it two different ways, the first being the way we discussed it in class. The second was that it could have been covering up Gene's mistakes, or the kinks in Gene and Finny's relationship. I would think of white as more of an innocent color, and it seems more forgiving to me. I also thought of it in a way to be a fresh, new start for Gene, like a blank piece of paper. What do others think?
My questions is why was Finny being so mean about Leper when Gene, Brinker and others were making up those stories about Leper and the war? You'd think Finny would play along, since he thinks the war is just a lie, but no. Instead, he says "If someone gave Leper a loaded gun and put it at Hitler's temple, he'd miss." Although it may be true, Finny doesn't seem like he say that. Basically, I thought this remark was unlike-Finny. My theory on why Finny was so bitter/condescending was because Leper was getting all this attention and Finny wasn't. I think Finny has this need to be the center of attention where ever he goes, and so he's jealous of Leper. This also shows a different side to Finny because he's usually seen as happy-go-lucky, but here he experiences the envy that Gene has to deal with. What do you guys think?
Ok. My question is: Why do you think that the author would send Leper to the war, but not have Brinker go? Brinker definitely seems like more of a fighting type, and Leper was always calm, and always was admiring and enjoying the scene. It certainly shows that Leper has much more gut than Brinker, given that he went and enlisted, and Brinker didn't. I also think that this is why Brinker is always making fun of others. He is self-concious, or jealous of something from everyone. The thing that Brinker would be jealous of in Leper is his guts. The thing that he would be jealous of in Gene I was thinking that it could be the close relationship that he has with Finny. What do others think?
To answer Jenny's question: I was thinking the same thing. In the last two or so sections, we have sort of begun to see that Finny always gets what he wants, and when he doesn't, he gets upset and frustrated, like he did with Leper. Finny almost seems spoiled now, and I was thinking it could be for several different reasons. The main reason that I was thinking of was that Gene is becoming more mature, and seeing a lot of the things that Finny does as childish. However, the part that I don't get is why he keeps doing whatever Finny wants him to do. I think that it is because he feels like he owes Finny, and feels like he needs to make up for his mistake. It could also be as simple as he wants to keep their relationship the same as it was at the beginning of the book. Other opinions?
In this last section I thought Gene was acting a lot more mature and less confused. Did anyone else notice that? Do you think he was writing from his perspective as an adult looking back or do you think Finny’s death changed him that much? What did you think of Mr. Hadley showing up? Also what about the descriptions of physical features Gene went into in this section. One about the color of a group of changing guys’ underwear and the other about the thickness of Mr. Hadley’s hair and the healthiness of his skin. Why did Mr. Hadley have the reaction he did about Brinker’s choice to join the coastguards? I couldn’t tell what his reaction meant or how he felt about it. What opinions do you guys have?
I was wondering what everyone thought of Gene in pgs 49-60. To me, that section really showed how obnoxious Gene was and how nice Finny was. I was also wondering what everyone thought about how Finny and Gene just escaped from campus, spent the night on the beach and didn't even get in trouble! It seemed really weird to me because this school seems to be really serious about academics and discipline. My last question is why do you think Gene kicked Finny off the tree? I think that it's because Gene wants to discontinue Finny's success at sports. What do you guys think?
ReplyDeleteanswer to christine lci
ReplyDeletei think that most people didn't think that much of Gene because he was just a follower, so just like how Gene didn't discribe the people who followed Finny no one else took notice of him. i think that they would have gotten in trouble but because as we have seen in the last chapter or two finny is good at getting away with anything. so my guess is that they would have but they didn't also they didn't miss class so not so bad i guess. i thought Gene kicked Finny off the tree because he was jealous of Finny but i don't think it was because he wanted to discontinue Finny's success in sports. i thought it more had to do with the line "i said nothing, my mind was exploring the new dimensions of isolation around me. any fear i had ever had of the tree was nothing beside this. it wasn't my neck, but my understanding which was menaced. he had never been jealous of me for a second now i knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us. i was not of the same quality as he." i think he got really scared because he wasn't the same quality as finny so he just got really upset about. by the way Gene didn't kick finny off of the tree he jiggled the branch they were standing on in was that made him fall.
Gene was always had a hidden jealousy of Finny, and there have been many clues throughout the book about this such as Gene always wanting Finny to get in trouble. Finny is just who Gene wants to be. There is a kid like this at every school who gets along with everyone and is good at sports. I think Gene did push out of tree for two reasons:
ReplyDelete1) Gene has kept all of his jealous contained and at one point it was inevitable that he would blow up.
2) There hasn't been building tension, and this is a good semi-climax
3) The emphasis on Finny saving his life in the tree.
I had a couple of questions about the section 61-71. My first question was: How can Gene get away with being late to the fall term at Devon? I know that he and Finny would always break the rules, but this isn't the summer session anymore. Doesn't he have any parents that will get called from the school and be worried? Wouldn't the school be worried? I don't get how he can get away with that.
ReplyDeleteMy second question was: When Gene went to see Finny, and confessed about pushing him off of the tree, why did he get mad and insult Finny. On page 70 Finny says, "I'm going to hit you if you don't sit down," and Gene reiterates "Hit me! You can't even get up! You can't even come near me!" I just thought that that was very mean and insulting to Finny. I didn't think that he would do something like that, but i didn't think he'd push Finny off of the tree so....
Nick, I'm going to try and answer your questions.
ReplyDelete1) I think that he can't get away with it. he most like will get in trouble for being a day late. I also suppose that they would call his parents but the school may wait a day or two longer just incase that he got delayed or something.
2) the reason I think that gene insulted Finny is that Finny wasn't believing him so he got upset about it. also I suppose that he wanted Finny to realize what he (Gene) had done to him. Gene wanted him (Finny) to be mad at him. It's kind of what little kids do because you know if one of the little kids hurts the other they usually say, "you can punch me if that will make you feel better." I think that what Gene almost wants because it will take away his guilt.
Answer to Nick: I think the reason why Gene insulted Finny was because he might have felt embarrassed and extremely guilty for what he did to Finny and rather than being sad, it was easier for Gene to get angry and Finny was the one Gene could take in out on because Finny was weaker in that moment than Gene was.
ReplyDeleteMy question is why at the end of the section Gene and Finny seemed back to being friends? It seemed like they had forgotten the conversation/argument they had just had and were back to talking about light things ("I never sleep much on trains..."Don't worry about it.".."I think I'd better get to the station.").
It just confused be because it seemed like it was one of the climaxes of the book, and then it seemed to have not even happened.
Jenny I am going to respond to what you said.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why they seemed like friends again. Gene walked in and they started talking to each other like they never left one another. Why didn't Finny take it when Gene told him that he jounced the limb for him to fall? He just won't take it. I would have been mad at Gene but happy that I was also alive if I were Finny. I understand Gene is his best friend and that might be hard to accept, but he has to realise that Gene is telling the truth. Their relationship is too weird to me.
Jared, in answer to your question,
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to stress that Finny is a very innocent person. His view of the world is very innocent, which is very significant to his character. For him to suddenly realize that his best friends jealousy is so strong that he would try to hurt him, and to be told so suddenly by Gene would be hard to accept. Here's my question: Why, in the next section, does Gene think that his fight with Quackenbush was in some way for Finny? Does it connect to how he told Finny what he did, or that Finny can't play sports again?
on page 73 i was wondering why "What We Owed Devon" was capitalized. To me it seemed to make the point that it was important, but i did not understand why. I also wondered what people thought of the quote pg. 73 We had thought of what Devon owed us, an we had taken all that and much more." this reminded me of the quote from the beginning pg 30 "We spent that summer i complete selfishness,I'm happy to say" another quote that i wondered about was pg 75 "The Devon school was aside these two rivers" i am wondering why it is set off from the rest of the words on the page by being its own paragraph, is it just to place emphasis on the symbol?
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else have thoughts on the beginning of chapter 6, "Peace had deserted Devon."? I know that later in the chapter, he talks about how he saw war in everything: football players looked like they were actually trying to kill each other, etc. But what does the title really mean? So far I see themes of peace and war in three things: the war itself, Gene's relationship with Finny, and Devon.
ReplyDeleteJared, in response to you question
ReplyDeleteI was also confused by the fight with Quackenbush, but after re reading it i thought that Gene felt as if he was defending Finny because he felt that because Finny was crippled or maimed by breaking his leg hat saying something to Quackenbush about it was defending him.
But i was also confused by how quickly gene got angry and tat he slapped Quackenbuh. This seemed very out of character to me, and i did not understand why gene now has such a short fuse.
(86-102)
ReplyDeleteIn this section, I was a little confused with Gene and Brinker's relationship. Were they already friends? It seemed to me like they became friends in this section because Gene talked about how much they did together. I was shocked when Brinker accused Gene of making Finny fall, I didn't think that anyone would accuse him because they were best friends.
At the end of this section, I couldn't tell if Gene was sad that Finny came back or not. It seemed like Gene was happier with him gone, and that he was more of his own person, and I think that he liked that, what did you guys think?
(86-102)
ReplyDeleteI dont understand the first couple lines of chapter 7 when Gene says, "I had taken a shower to wash off thesticky salt of theNaguamsett River -going into the Devn was like taking a refreshing shower itself, you never had to clean up after it, but the Naguamsett was something else intirely. I had never been in it before; it seemed appropriate that my baptism there had taken place on the first day of this winter session, and that I had been thrown into it in the middle of a fight. I know that is an important but I dont know how it is. Does it have to do with Gene's relationship with Finny? Or is it like Gene starting a new life? I dont know how to inturprate it.
To answer Callie yes I think that Gene started to become friends with Brinker at the begining of this chapter I dont think he was before. Gene never really seemed to talk about him having friends before besides Finny it was like Finny was his only friend but now he is gone Gene is branching out and noticing other people that he didnt before.
(86-102)
ReplyDeleteI didnt understand the fist couple lines of chapter seven. When Gene says, "I had taken a shower to wash off the sticky salt of the Naguamsett River- going into the Devon was like taking a refreshing shower itself,you never had to clean up after it, but the Naguamsett was something else entirely. I had never been in it before; it seemed appropriate that my baptism there had taken place on the first day of this winter session, and that I had been thrown into it, in the middle of a fight. I know that this is important but I dont understand why. Is it describing Gene and Finny's relationship or is it talking about Gene having a new start?
To answer Callies question I think that Brinker and Gene became friends in this chapter not before. Before Gene never seemed to have any friends but Finny, Finny did but Gene didnt. But now Finny is gone Gene is starting to notice people and branch out.
(86-102)
ReplyDeleteMy question is why, on page 100, does Brinker get so frustrated and say: "Everybody in this place is either a draft-dodging Kraut or a nat-u-ral-ist! I'm giving it up, I'm going to enlist. Tomorrow." It seems really sudden and I don't really understand his hostility towards Leper. He seemed to have strong opinions on staying in school and graduating, so it's weird that he would just throw them away.
Answer to Amelia's question:
I think Gene says this because it's sort of a "rebirth" (or baptism) for him to be thrown into the river on the first day of the winter session as he is still mourning the summer session when he felt so many different things, and that we would be fighting while doing it because that's a new side of him he's discovering, one that's violent and angry with unhidden emotions. Gene's a new person as the year starts and he's feeling confused about what happened with Finny and what's going on in their relationship, so to answer your question I think it's describing both.
Ok...so I was wondering what the snow in the section 86-102 meant. I took it two different ways, the first being the way we discussed it in class. The second was that it could have been covering up Gene's mistakes, or the kinks in Gene and Finny's relationship. I would think of white as more of an innocent color, and it seems more forgiving to me. I also thought of it in a way to be a fresh, new start for Gene, like a blank piece of paper. What do others think?
ReplyDeleteMy questions is why was Finny being so mean about Leper when Gene, Brinker and others were making up those stories about Leper and the war? You'd think Finny would play along, since he thinks the war is just a lie, but no. Instead, he says "If someone gave Leper a loaded gun and put it at Hitler's temple, he'd miss." Although it may be true, Finny doesn't seem like he say that. Basically, I thought this remark was unlike-Finny. My theory on why Finny was so bitter/condescending was because Leper was getting all this attention and Finny wasn't. I think Finny has this need to be the center of attention where ever he goes, and so he's jealous of Leper. This also shows a different side to Finny because he's usually seen as happy-go-lucky, but here he experiences the envy that Gene has to deal with. What do you guys think?
ReplyDeleteOk. My question is: Why do you think that the author would send Leper to the war, but not have Brinker go? Brinker definitely seems like more of a fighting type, and Leper was always calm, and always was admiring and enjoying the scene. It certainly shows that Leper has much more gut than Brinker, given that he went and enlisted, and Brinker didn't. I also think that this is why Brinker is always making fun of others. He is self-concious, or jealous of something from everyone. The thing that Brinker would be jealous of in Leper is his guts. The thing that he would be jealous of in Gene I was thinking that it could be the close relationship that he has with Finny. What do others think?
ReplyDeleteTo answer Jenny's question: I was thinking the same thing. In the last two or so sections, we have sort of begun to see that Finny always gets what he wants, and when he doesn't, he gets upset and frustrated, like he did with Leper. Finny almost seems spoiled now, and I was thinking it could be for several different reasons. The main reason that I was thinking of was that Gene is becoming more mature, and seeing a lot of the things that Finny does as childish. However, the part that I don't get is why he keeps doing whatever Finny wants him to do. I think that it is because he feels like he owes Finny, and feels like he needs to make up for his mistake. It could also be as simple as he wants to keep their relationship the same as it was at the beginning of the book. Other opinions?
In this last section I thought Gene was acting a lot more mature and less confused. Did anyone else notice that? Do you think he was writing from his perspective as an adult looking back or do you think Finny’s death changed him that much? What did you think of Mr. Hadley showing up? Also what about the descriptions of physical features Gene went into in this section. One about the color of a group of changing guys’ underwear and the other about the thickness of Mr. Hadley’s hair and the healthiness of his skin. Why did Mr. Hadley have the reaction he did about Brinker’s choice to join the coastguards? I couldn’t tell what his reaction meant or how he felt about it. What opinions do you guys have?
ReplyDelete