Summary
Finny playfully criticizes Gene’s clothes and grumbles
about the lack of maid service. Gene responds that it is no great
loss, considering the war, and he makes up Finny’s bed for him.
The next day, Brinker bursts in, about to ask if Gene is ready to
enlist, when he sees Finny. He starts to make a joke about Gene’s
“plan”—to kill Finny and get the room for himself—but Gene cuts
him off and explains to Finny about Brinker’s suggestion to enlist.
Finny’s unenthusiastic reaction leads Gene to realize that Finny
doesn’t want him to leave. Gene now tells Brinker, to Finny’s obvious
relief, that he no longer wants to enlist. The roommates begin to
make jokes, saying that they wouldn’t enlist with Brinker if he
were General MacArthur’s son or even Madame Chiang Kai-shek of China.
In the midst of these jokes, Finny tags Brinker with a nickname:
“Yellow Peril” Hadley, referring to his supposed double-life as
Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
As Gene and Finny make their way over patches of ice to
their first class, Finny remarks that winter loves him; he knows
this, he says, because he loves winter, and it must return his affection.
He then suggests that they cut class to give Finny a chance to look
at the school after his long absence. They set out immediately across
campus for the gym. Gene worries that Finny is planning to stare
at his trophies and brood, but instead they go down to the locker
room and Finny asks Gene what team he has joined for the year. Gene
tells him that he did not try out for any teams, attempting to defend
himself by noting the diminished importance of sports during the
war. Finny declares that there is no war, that it is all a conspiracy
orchestrated by the adult establishment—by fat, rich, old men—to
keep young people in their place. When Gene asks why the conspiracy has
not been detected by anyone else, Finny replies that he alone can see
it because of the extent of his suffering. His answer amazes both boys.
An awkward silence follows, and Gene, wanting to break the tension,
goes over to an exercise bar and begins doing chin-ups. Finny tells
him to do thirty and encourages him with his tone of voice as he
counts them aloud for Gene. Finny tells Gene that he wanted to be
an Olympic athlete and that now he will have to train Gene to go
in his place. Finny convinces Gene to undertake the training despite
his objections that the war will preempt the Olympics in 1944. Finny
begins to train Gene and Gene tutors Finny in his classes; they
are both surprised by their progress.
One morning, as Gene runs a course around the headmaster’s house
under Finny’s guidance, he suddenly finds his stride, running better
than he ever has before. Mr. Ludsbury comes out to see what the
boys are doing and Finny tells him that Gene is training for the Olympics.
Ludsbury tells them to remember that all athletic training should
be dedicated to preparation for war, but Finny flatly replies, “No.”
This response flusters Ludsbury, who mutters something and leaves.
Finny muses that the headmaster seems to believe sincerely in the
reality of the war; he concludes that Ludsbury must be too thin to
be let in on the hoax run by the fat old men. Gene feels a flash
of pity for Ludsbury’s “fatal thinness,” reflecting that he indeed
seems to have always had a “gullible side.”
Analysis
By this point in the book, the reader recognizes the effect
of Finny’s fall on his relationship with Gene. Far from driving
a wedge between them, the fall has instead resulted in a tightening
of the strange bond between the two friends. “He need[s] me,” Gene
says to himself, watching his friend hobble into the shower, a realization sufficient
to drive away his thoughts of joining the army. Were he to enlist,
Gene would join Brinker Hadley in embracing adulthood and responsibility;
in many ways, by staying by Finny’s side, Gene inhibits his own
development and process of self-discovery.
There are two possible explanations for how the fall can
have brought the friends closer even though the events and emotions leading
up to it seem to prove Gene undeserving of such a friendship. First,
Finny does seem to harbor a genuine love for Gene, and, because
he loves his friend, it doesn’t occur to him that Gene might not
love him back. As usual, he assumes that other people approach the
world in the same way that he does. This attitude emerges clearly in
his comments about winter: loving winter himself, he cannot conceive
of the season harboring any enmity toward him, though Gene points
out that winter is treacherous for someone on crutches. If one loves
something enough, he insists, it must return that affection. One
can argue that this assumption—that love is always reciprocated—is
the foundation of his continued closeness with Gene.
But there may be a darker current underpinning the boys’
closeness, working alongside Finny’s innocent love for his best
friend. We have already seen evidence of Gene’s eagerness to lose
himself in Finny, to give up his identity and live as a part of
his friend. But now, in Finny’s enthusiasm to train Gene for the
1944 Olympics, we observe how Finny, too, contributes to this process,
welcoming this sacrifice on Gene’s part. Denied the ability to live
life to the fullest by his injury, Finny sets out to live through
Gene by attempting to transform him into the athlete that he himself
once was. When Gene achieves his breakthrough on the track and becomes
a better runner, Finny remarks that Gene has learned something new
about himself through exercise. While this statement may be true,
it also rings of cruel irony: perhaps all that Gene has learned
about himself is how easily he can transform himself into a mirror
of Finny.
