Two of the symbols that emerge in Chapter 3 are sports and
blitzball.
Sports are a metaphor for the war. Finny, who is
a great afficionado of games of athletic skill, has a most unrealistic view on winning
and losing -
"Finny never permitted himself to realize that
when you won they lost...that would have destroyed the perfect beauty which was sport.
Nothing bad ever happened in sports; they were the absolute
good."
There is a tendency to
present war as glorious in nature, with no regard for the actual barbarity and suffering
it entails. The focus is on winning, with little attention paid to the carnage inflicted
on others. Finny's attitude towards sports reflects this naive and incomplete view of
war. It is this view that seduces Leper into joining the ranks of the military; when he
discovers the truth that has been overlooked, he cannot handle it and loses contact with
reality.
Blitzball is also a metaphor for the war. Finny,
as the person in power, makes up the rules as he goes, and the others follow his lead
virtually unquestioningly, even when his rules make no sense. This is how wars are run;
the men in power over nations make up the rules, and the common man must follow them
without question. What is illogical is made to seem logical by the charismatic aura of
power and spin, and men do what they are told without protest, carrying out the dirty
work of the war.
A third symbol that emerges is Finny and
Gene's trip to the beach. The trip, against all rules, denies the reality of the war
that hangs over the lives of the boys at Devon and the nation; representing the
"separate peace" created by Finny (Chapter 3).
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