The snowball fight culminating with everyone turning on Finny happens at this moment to foreshadow Finny’s downfall later on in the chapter. After Gene’s visit to Leper in Vermont he returns to the Devon school. Once there, he is greeted with a rampaging snowball fight, lead by Finny. Gene narrates, “we ended the fight in the only way possible; all of us turned on Phineas. Slowly, with a steadily widening grin, he was driven beneath a blizzard of snowballs,” (155). The timing of this event is significant, because Gene has returned from Leper’s house; where Leper accuses Gene of knocking Finny out of the tree. Since then, the truth has become closer to emerging completely. The snowball fight scene foreshadows the trial, where the truth is closer than ever to emerging. This moment foreshadows the events later on in the chapter, where Finny’s downfall is everyone elses fault. The fight also represents how Finny wouldn’t be able to thrive in the real world, which is the war. Finny hadn’t accepted the war, until he eventually sees Leper hiding in the bush. At that point he realized how the war affected Leper. He then instantly knew that he didn’t feel welcomed in this new reality, nor did he want to be a part of it. Overall when everyone turns on Finny in the snowball fight, it foreshadows his accident later in the chapter.
1. Do you think Gene will admit his wrongdoings now that Finny has fallen again?
2. Have there been any other important foreshadowing moments before Finny's second accident?
At the beginning of the snowball fight, there were two sides that had formed and were fighting it out. During the course of the fight, the students at Devon started to betray each other and turn on one another so that "loyalties became hopelessly entangled. No one was going to win or lose." (Knowles 154). This foreshadows the trial, but it also makes a larger point about the war. In war, neither side wins or loses, and sometimes people switch back and forth just to "heighten the disorder." (Knowles 154). The snowball fight is a version of the war going on in the world outside of Devon.
ReplyDeleteOne important foreshadowing moment happens during the 'olympics' when it is clear that Finny will never step a foot in the war. After Gene wins the ski jump, Finny does a triumphant dance."It was his wildest demonstration of himself, in the kind of world that he loved; it was his choreography of peace." (Knowles 136). This hints that Finny will not be going to war and that in his heart he is not a warrior but a peacekeeper. Even though it does not tell us that he dies at the end, it tells us he will not be going to war.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the snowball fight is a foreshadow and symbolism. But, adding on to what you think it symbolizes, I also see it as a Gene's internal conflict about Finny. Gene has always felt guilty after doing what he did to Finny, and this is his internal conflict. Gene has always tried to tell Finny that he pushed him out of the tree on purpose, but it took a lot of bravery for him to do so. The war of the snowball fight is Gene’s internal fight to tell Finny. At the end of the fight when it says, “we ended the fight in the only way possible; all of us turned on Phineas,”(Knowles 155), it is like how Gene ends up attacking Finny with the truth of the fall from the tree.
ReplyDeleteI think that the snowball fight also symbolized war. There was so much war themed words in that paragraph. Knowles writes, "I seized some ammunition from the group and we were engulfed" (154). Ammunition in this case is now. Later in this scene words like fire and betrayed come up. The language of this passage I think is very deliberate as a snowball fight is a mini war.
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