CH. 12 -13

1.

• After the accident they act like responsible adults but before they were irresponsible to push the truth on Finny when he wasn’t ready for it. Before they were not thinking of how Finny would handle the truth. The trial was more for their own benefit.

• Later, all, including Finny, are in control now and acting responsibly. Went to get the wrestling coach – too long to get doctor – get a blanket – etc…

Not on study guide

• How do they carry Finny out of the building?

• Like some tragic and exalted personage, a stricken pontiff – a god – something larger than life

• Why is it ironic?

• Finny usually carried others (not literally but figuratively – bolstering them in life)

2.• At first he is torn – he wants to help his friend but

fears that Finny will reject him – so he helps indirectly by fetching the blanket

• This climatic moment is too much for his mind to absorb

• He roams around and thinks about stealing a car and leaving

• Hides in the bushes by Finny’s window• He starts to imagine things – random thoughts• Laughs hysterically• And then begins to cry• Like Leper, his war has transformed him – his

own fear is causing him to crack

3.

• Finny had thought of Gene as an extension of himself and vice versa. (Gene will play sports for Finny / Gene wears Finny’s clothes)

• Now Finny is far away from Gene and thus Gene is not himself

Not on study guide

• How does Finny react to Gene at his window?

• Asks if he is there to break something more

• His leg is broken twice and now his heart

Not on study guide

• What becomes the new background of Finny’s life – replaces the gym?

• The infirmary

• No longer the smell of competition/sweat but of defeat and sickness

Not on study guide

• What has Finny been doing with no one noticing?

• Writing to the army and others asking them to take him – let him fight in the war

• He knew the war was real all along but didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t be in it

• Gene says he’d be bad at war – he doesn’t see enemies and wants everyone to win

4.

• Does Finny forgive him or not????• Finny says he believes it was an impulse – a blind

impulse – not a deep held hatred that Gene felt for him• Finny also says Gene has shown him since the accident

that they are friends• Is the real reason that Finny needs to forgive Gene or

Finny’s own world will be destroyed? He believes in goodness – is goodness personified – so if Gene is truly bad then Finny can no longer believe the world is good.

• Gene also reminds restores Finny’s faith that there is still good in the world when he states that Finny would make a mess of the war – have both sides being friends

5.

• Dies from a fragment of bone marrow that entered his heart

• Broken heart??? No will to live?

Not on the study guide

• He felt he was at his own funeral and you can’t cry then

• Part of him dies with Finny – Is it because he loved his friend so much?– Is it because the only goodness he thinks he

has comes from Finny?

Ch. 13

1.

• Doesn’t want to talk about things that cannot be changed and refuses to talk about Finny if people are going to lie and sugar coat what happened

• He wants only honesty from here on out

2.

• Brinker’s dad – thinks the boys should want to go to war, war is glorious, have your memories for life, get respect for how you acted in war

• Gene – doesn’t want to go to war, thinks it is a dirty and rotten business

• Gene’s view is wiser – he’s already been to war and knows what it is like – knows the destruction

3.

p. 194-195

When people realize that there is something hostile in the world with them, then the simplicity and unity of their character is gone….Phineas alone escaped this. . . Nothing, even about the war, had broken his harmonious and natural unity. . . So at last I had.

4. • Gene says war is made by the ignorance

of the human heart. Men seeking out the darkness of the human spirit. He is ready for war now that all his fury is gone – he’d already killed his enemy …was on active duty the whole time he was at Devon

• Brinker will go to war and fight in it but won’t like it.

• Finny knew it is real and was upset that he couldn’t participate in the great event