Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Assignment 9 (138 - 151): Since Leper is “section 8” (“for nuts in the service”), explore the irony of Leper’s statement “always were a savage underneath.” Take into consideration that Leper contacted Gene. Why is this important?(Eve)
Leper calling Gene "savage underneath" is ironic because at Devon, Leper was always considered weird and crazy while Gene was thought of as a normal person. Leper was always described as different. He liked to collect snails and want skiing to look for a beaver dam while all the other boys worked. Leper didn't have many friends and he considered him and Gene to be very close. He even signed his name as "your best friend" on the telegram he sent. Gene was treated as an ordinary person. He was brought up the ranks of popularity by his friendship with Finny. He was considered ordinary. Leper was dismissed from the war by a section 8 discharge which means he was considered psycho or crazy. Out of the two of them, Leper would be the one considered savage. When leper says to Gene that he was "always were a savage underneath" (145) he was talking about Genes aggression and need to "find something deadly in everything he wanted" (knowles 101). Somehow, Leper knew that Gene push Finny out of the tree on purpose and understood why. He know that Gene is psycho even though everyone else can't see it.
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I agree with Eve about the irony of Leper calling Gene a savage. It is ironic because Leper was the one being put in Section Eight for being a psycho and savage. I don't think that Leper is indeed a psycho, but to soldiers in the war he is far different, (snail collecting, beaver finding...). He calls Gene over after his escape because he needs a person to comfort him, a friend. In the end, he used Gene not as comfort, but as a method to take out his anger and depression. "You always were a savage underneath. I always knew that only I never admitted it” (Knowles, 145). The army informed him about the fact he is a psycho, and now he is starting to believe it himself. The quote shows how Leper attempted to turn his desparate situation around on Gene, to make him feel as if he weren’t alone in his craziness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Eve and Nick in the sense that it is ironic how Leper is calling Gene a savage, when he himself, is practically insane. "...now there was a blind confusion in his eyes again, a wild slyness around his mouth..." (145) Just before this quote is said, the savage line is brought up my Leper, but as he says Gene's a savage, his actions contradict his words by acting like kind-of a savage.
ReplyDeleteI think that Gene attacks Leper because he realizes that if Leper can be this effected by the army, then Gene would be destroyed. Gene himself even said, "For if Leper was psycho it was the army which had done it to him, and I and all of us were on the brink of the army," [Knowles 144]. I think that Leper has transformed from a symbol of peace, to a symbol of fear. This relates to the irony of Leper calling Gene a savage by showing how much things have changed, and how the walls the boys have built to create these "separate peaces" are falling down.
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