In chapter 11, it is very evident that Brinker suspects that Gene had something to do with Finny's accident. Brinker creates a mock-trial in the assembly hall late at night, and invites some other of the boys at Devon to force Finny and Gene to attend. He plants a "seed" of suspicion, yet there is no one who can really verify the facts, because no one was there besides Gene, Finny and Leper. Brinker states this, saying its "too bad" (Knowles 172) that Leper is not here to reveal the whole truth. However, nobody knew that Leper was actually on campus, besides Gene and Finny, until Finny disclosed this information.
This led the the boys to go get Leper, who clearly described two figures on the branch the afternoon of the accident, one holding the trunk and one balancing on the edge of the limb. Leper, realized that he was being used by Brinker, saying, "I'm important, you never realized, but I'm important too. You be the fool now. Bastard." (Knowles 176). Without even actually accusing Gene, Finny realized, at that moment, that who he thought was his best friend, actually might've caused his accident. After discovering this, Finny rushes out of the assembly hall, stumbling down the marble stairs in frustration and anger.
I would actually say that Phineas already knew that Gene had knocked him off of the branch prior to having been informed by Leper’s very colorful description of the time in question. However, he continually told himself that this was not the case. Phineas is not equipped to deal with sadness or large emotional obstacles. His way of coping with suddenly having so many of these in his life at one time was to remove some. When Finny asks Gene, “Have you swallowed all that war stuff,” (Knowles 114), it clearly shows that Finny has eliminated the thought of the war from his life to lighten his burden. He has done the same with Gene’s moment of aggression towards him.
ReplyDelete