Saturday, April 23, 2016
(Assignment 4 #61-71) While Finny is in the infirmary, Gene is paranoid that people will be suspicious of him, and then he dresses in Finny's clothes and feels better. Why does Gene do this? Why is this significant? (Charlotte)
Gene dresses in Finny's clothes because it allows him to take on a new identity. Ever since Gene bounced the tree limb and caused Finny's leg to shatter, he has been drowning in guilt. This guilt has caused him to become paranoid, thinking that everyone at Devon knows that he is responsible for Finny's accident. Not being able to tell anyone about how he caused the incident has caused this guilt to build up inside him so that he feels as though he is carrying a burden on his shoulders. To temporarily escape this guilt, he tries out walking in Finny's shoes, literally. He says, "I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought. To forget where I was, even who I was." (Knowles 62) This shows how Gene is not only dealing with a burden on his back, but how he is also insecure. He felt relieved the instant he tried on Finny's cordovan shoes, which proves that he is envious of Finny and would much rather have Finny's life at this moment in time. "I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief, but it seemed, standing there in Finny's triumphant shirt, that I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again." (Knowles 62) Wearing Finny's clothes, Gene has no worries and feels comfort, something he has not felt in a long time. Based on the reaction he experienced from this "therapy," it does not seem unlikely that he will try something similar again, especially since he made things worse with Finny after finally telling him of his guilt. Everybody makes mistakes, and this is just one example of how Gene is only human.
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I agree with Charlotte, but I also think that Gene dresses in Finny's clothing because he feels guilt. "If Phineas had been sitting her in this pool of guilt, how would he have felt, what would he have done." (66) I think Finny's way of covering up his guilt is dressing in clothing. He doesn't want to tell Finny the truth, so he covers it up by wearing his clothing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Charlotte that Gene dresses in Finny's clothes to take on a new identity, but I think he did this to take on the Identity of the person he admires most, Finny. He knows that Finny would know what to do and he would know how to handle the situation at hand. After Finny's apology Gene realizes that Finny ad him were actually friends, "And I thought we were competitors." (Knowles 66). After this Gene wants to be more like Finny because he admires him and how he handles the situation, apologizing to Gene after Gene hurt him.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Charlotte and Ben that when Gene wears Finny's clothes it makes him feel better and relieves some of the guilt. I think that one way wearing Finny's clothes makes him feel better is it makes him feel as if Finny is actually in the room, can walk, is not at all injured, and is his usual, spunky, creative self. "I was Phineas, Phineas to the life. I even had his humorous expression in my face, his sharp optimistic awareness. I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief" (Knowles 62). Trying on Finny's clothes makes Gene feel as if Finny was never injured, and there was never a reason for Gene to feel guilt, which momentarily takes the heavy weight of guilt off of Gene's shoulders.
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