Saturday, May 12, 2018
Assignment 11: #5 Explain the significance of the last paragraph: "I did not cry then or ever about Finny. I did not cry even when I stood watching him being lowered into his family's strait-laced burial ground outside of Boston. I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case." (Tyler)
The significance of the last paragraph is that although it is Finny that physically dies, an emotional part of Gene also dies. Throughout the novel there is a complex relationship that develops between Finny and Gene. Before Finny’s injury there is a rather intense rivalry that developed between the two. Gene was the introverted, intelligent, boy, while Finny was the athletic, genuine, extroverted boy. However, following Finny’s injury, it is almost as though the two boys identities become merged together. When Gene caused Finny to fall from the tree and break his leg, a huge piece of Finny’s athletic identity was forever lost. In fact, in a phone conversation between the two boys while Finny was recuperating at home, Finny told Gene, “listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,” and I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas" (Knowles 85). Upon Finny’s return to Devon, Finny explained how he had hoped to train for the 1944 Olympics, and now because of his injury and inability to participate, he would train Gene instead. As Gene’s identity shifts to replacing what is lost in Finny’s, he explains “I went along, as I always did, with any new invention of Finny’s” (p. 117). The search for individual identity by each of the adolescent boys in the novel comes to an end with the death of Finny. Gene “could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral” (p. 194) because a part of Gene died when Finny died. Finny was never one to feel sorry for himself, so Gene in acting like Finny, did not cry when Dr. Stanpole told him of Finny’s death, or “when I stood watching him being lowered into his family’s strait burial ground outside of Boston” (p. 194). Ironically, there is no “separate peace” for either boy because Gene lost a part of himself when Finny died, just like Finny lost a part of himself when he fell out of that tree.
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I think that another reason that Gene felt as if it was his own funeral was because he found parts of Finny in himself and he felt as though he was a part of Finny and Finny was a part of him. Earlier in the novel, Gene tries on Finny's clothing. He narrates, "I decided to put on his clothes... But when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become, no character our of daydreams. I was Phones, Phones to the life" (Knowles 62). This passage shows one of the first times that Gene felt the bond between him and Finny that connected them as one. Thought the novel, this bond between their identities grows. This feeling of being part of each other is why at the end of the book when Finny dies, Gene feels like it is his funeral as well.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the quote "I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral," (Knowles, 194) continues and ends the attachment between Finny and Gene, and the idea that they are 'the same person'. Throughout the book, Gene and Finny realize that they are almost an extension of one another. At the end of Chapter 6, when Finny tells Gene that Gene must take his place in sports, Gene "lost part of myself to him then... this must have been my purpose from the first, to become a part of Phineas," (Knowles, 85). This continues throughout the book: the two boys are so close, and as Finny's injury changes them, they take up the other's strengths. Finny dying represents a part of Gene dying, because Finny was an integral part of Gene's character. The funeral also represents the ending of Gene's boyhood. Finny is incredibly imaginative, and makes up all sorts of games that are detached from the real world. He allows Gene to almost forget the war. However, when he dies, Gene must face reality, and see that the war is upon him. Finny dying represents an important part of Gene's childhood dying as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that one of the reasons that Gene did not cry at his funeral was because he felt like he had parts of Finny in him and this made him not think about his death we know this because he even said "I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral" (Knowles, 194) . We know that Gene has parts in him of Finny and that he tries to embrace them and show off, an example of this is when he wears Finny's clothes when he is away during his first injury. I also agree with Tyler when he said that the injury will only affect Finny physically and that mentally he will still have that friendliness, kindness and good spirt inside of him.
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