My heart stopped when I read this quote in the last section of A Separate Peace: “This touched an interesting point Phineas had been turning over in his mind for a long time. I could tell that because the obstinate, competitive look left his face as his mind became engaged for the first time. ‘It’s very funny,’ he said ‘but ever since then I’ve had a feeling that the tree did it by itself. “It’s an impression I’ve had. Almost as though the tree shook me out by itself’” (Knowles, 169). The reason that this struck a chord with me was because this isn’t the truth. And Phineas was told the truth earlier on in the story, yet he continues to deny it. Though Brinker continues to prod and dig further in order to find the reason behind the mystery of Phineas’ fall, I still don’t understand exactly why people continue to do so. I understand that this was possibly the largest tragedy at the Devon School, but at the time Phineas wasn’t dead.
I also didn’t get this quote said on page 176 where Brinker compares both Phineas and Gene to an engine: “But it has two pistons. What is that engine? Well anyway, in this engine first one piston sinks, and then the next one sinks. The one holding on to the trunk for a second, up and down like a piston, and then the other one sank and fell.” I don’t quite understand this analogy because an engine works with more than two pistons. While one piston is receding the other is ascending. I don’t get why Brinker used this analogy because he already suspected Gene of committing this crime… And the fact that only one person jumped makes this analogy totally unreasonable.
Till the end of the book, I continued to not understand the relationship between Phineas and Gene. Yes, I feel as though Phineas admired Gene beyond the point that I would have admired him. However, Gene’s standpoint and opinion of Finny seems to be as decisive as a sine curve—very indecisive. Prior to Gene’s visit to Finny in the hospital (the second time), Gene was looking forward to seeing his old friend—especially witnessing him talk in Latin to the doctors and nurses tending to him. It was mentioned in the book repeatedly that it “made him laugh” the fact that Finny did this just to annoy several people. However with the turn of the page Phineas hated the very sight and sound of his childhood pal Gene. He supposedly thrashed about in his hospital bed (keep in mind Phineas has several broken bones along with his leg tied up in a cast resting above his head). This action alone displays how much hate is held towards Gene. But I didn’t happen to catch when in the story Gene’s confession was truly believed and processed by Finny.
I also don’t fully understand why this second incident was Gene’s fault. It wasn’t. I feel as though the blame for this most recent occurrence should be placed upon Brinker and Leper because they were the ones whose arguing drove Finny off the wall and down the marble stairs. Knowing this, why does Gene think: “I couldn’t escape a confusing sense of having lived through all of this before—Phineas in the Infirmary, and myself responsible” (Knowles, 187). Hiren, if someone in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest suddenly realized that they had done something extremely wrong (beside MacArthur), then how do you think that book would have played out?
Another quote that caught my attention was on page 187: “But I could not hear, and that as because I did not exist.”
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