Chapter 12: Explain the significance of the last paragraph: "I did not cry….you do not cry in that case."(pg. 194)

Well, as everybody knows Finny dies from operation, which makes Gene depressed and wishes he was dead. But before the operation was in action Gene and Finny had reunited their friendship by Gene telling Finny that he caused him to fall by accident which Finny forgave him for. Gene was excited that he finally told Finny that he caused him to fall off the tree and that Finny does not hate him anymore. After they made up with each other, Dr. Stanpole told him to come back around five o'clock which was when the operation was going to finish. Gene goes to classes and can't wait to see Finny again with a fixed leg. He even skips the meeting of the Commencement Arrangements Committee to see his friend Finny again. When he comes to visit Finny, Dr. Stanpole talks to Gene one on one, which gives Gene a bad feeling and the bad feeling was the horrifying message of the death of Gene's best friend Finny.

Since he heard that message he was depressed and felt that he caused all this to happen. Gene felt like he was the murderer of Gene because he felt like he caused him to die all the tension and confusion. The tension started with Gene pushing Finny off the tree, after trying to hide the truth, then Finny realizing that Gene caused his fall which made him get furious and burst out the assembly room, and fall down the stairs. When Gene says," I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case", I believe he says this because he wished he was the one who fell off the tree and died from the operation. All this guilt gets to his head and makes him wish he was dead. Wishing he was dead at the funeral of Finny he does not cry because if it is your funeral you obviously don’t cry because you are dead. Gene changes after Finny's death because he does not want to be noticed anymore and does not feel like he deserves a life.

Chapter 10: Why might the mention of Brinker trigger Leper’s violent reaction? Think about what you know about role so far.

The reason that Leper broke down into sobs when Gene brought up Brinker's head on a woman's body was because the idea went against the idealistic views that Leper has in his head. It reminded him of an incident in the army that ended up getting him discharged for a mental illness. The same mind that always appreciated the perfection in trees and beaver dams couldn't handle such a backwards thought as a mans head on a woman's body, so he just broke down. This was the reason that Leper couldn't handle being in the army. Once he starteed realizing that war is not all just skiing around, and that there are some harsh realities that one has to face, he says "Everything began to be inside out." (P. 150). He begins wondering "Am I [psycho], though, or is it the army?" (P. 150), which shows that he's questioning the army's diagnosis of him.

I think the reason Leper saw weird things in the army, and not at Devon, is because he was comfortable at Devon. When he went to the army, everything became tougher and more stressful than back at Devon, and that made him nervous. This nervousness made him imagine things, which made him more nervous, completing a vicious circle. In the end, he had a series of big hallucinations, which he handled by screaming as loud as he could, and thats what got him kicked out of the army. Do you think leaving the army was best for Leper? Do you think that if Leper returns to Devon, he'll stop hallucinating?