In the last paragraph of page 48, Phineas tells gene that they are best friends but Gene does not say anything back because something held him back from it. After Phineas and Gene go to the pool to beat a 100-meter freestyle school record which Phineas does not want anybody to know about, they decide to go to the beach. Well, Gene does not really want to go because he knows the consequences if they leave but Phineas convinces him. After they spend the rest of the day in the beach they go to sleep near the end and lonely part of the beach. Phineas then says “after all you can’t come to shore with just anybody and you can't come by yourself, and at this teen-age period in life the proper person is your best pal.” “Which is what you are.” (Knowles, 48). Gene hesitates and tries to say it back but it does not back, he says that something was holding him back from saying it. This thing that was holding him back was the truth. The truth was that they really were not best friends and that Gene is just jealous of Phineas.
Throughout this reading, Gene showed the intensity of his jealousy towards Finny, which began to bud in this paragraph. Gene and Finny lied on the beach after leaving school. Gene narrated, "Perhaps I was stopped by the level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth" (Knowles 48). This quote not only shows Gene's jealousy, but also how he couldn't control it and how didn't truly know what it was or that it was there. When he says that it was "deeper than thought" (Knowles 48), he means that he wasn't even able to think about these emotions, showing how they naturally developed without him realizing. When on the beach with Finny, Gene revealed that he was hiding the truth from himself of his suppressed jealousy of Finny.
ReplyDeleteThe summer of 1942 brought about The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session, Blitzball, and other rule breaking trips and freedoms. It was seemingly a summer that brought people together, most specifically “best pals” Gene and Finney, so why was Gene so hesitant to return Finney’s comment about being his best friend? At this moment, it is impossible not to think about the swimming pool incident, where Gene indicates that at Devon, “there were few relationships not based on rivalry” (p. 45). Now, Gene states that he didn’t return the sentiment to Finney because “exposing a sincere emotion nakedly at the Devon School was the next thing to suicide” (p. 48). If the culture of the school promotes rivalry among friends and students, and the suppression of emotion and true feelings, than is it possible that nobody at Devon can be true friends? Does Gene not respond, because the actual truth is that Gene and Finney aren’t friends but rivals?
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