In concurrence with the statement that Gene and Finny do
become friends at the end of the novel: Upon his return to Devon as he traverses the
campus, Gene remarks,
readability="10">
Everything at Devon slowly changed and slowly
harmonized with what had gone before. So it was logical to hope that since the buildings
could achieve this, I could acieve, perhaps unknowingly already had acieved, this growth
and harmony myself.
Having
made this remark after reflecting that he has a "well-known fear" preserved from his
Devon days and that the couple of places he wants to see are "fearful sites," the reader
understands that Gene's early relationship with Finny was not a true friendship, but one
of rivalry and jealousy on the part of Gene. For, Gene has feared and distrusted
Finny's noble nature that knew no pettiness. Gene has projected, instead, his own
pettiness upon Finny so that he could feel justified in his performing above Finny in
his classes. But, Finny did not care, so Gene could not be victorious in his created
rivalry. In Chapter 2, he contends,
readability="5">
There was no harm in envying even your best
friend a little.
When Gene is
unable to outdo Finny's athleticism, out of his envy, he becomes sarcastic because he
"recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak." Having spent the summer "in
complete selfishness," Gene forgets that Finny has practically saved his life by giving
Gene his arm on the limb when he loses his balance. For, in his act of jealousy and
pettiness after Finny keeps silent about breaking a school record, Gene jouses the limb
to give himself an advantage because, as he admits right before this
action,
He had
never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could
have been any rivalry between us, I was not of the same quality as
he.
However, Gene finds
himself "in a pool of guilt," and finds that he must confess to Finny. When peace
deserts Devon, Gene finds himself engaged in his own personal war just as the war goes
on outside him. When Finny asks Gene to play sports in his stead, Gene agrees,
saying,
"...I
lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must
have been my purpose from the first: to become part of
Phineas.
After Finny's tragic
second fall, Gene apologizes abjectly: "I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He accepts
the responsibility for his act as "some ignorance inside me." Gene extrapolates his
thought later saying,
readability="7">
...wars were not made by generations and their
special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human
heart.
This "something
"ignorant in the human heart" has never been in Finny, who never hated anyone or was
never afraid. But, Gene has feared and envied him because of Finny's nobility. Only
when Gene learns to recognize the integrity of Finny, only when he realizes that Finny
has never been his rival, only when Gene gives of himself to Finny can Gene become his
friend as Finny always has been his.
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