THEMES
change/ maturing
In the beginning of the book, all the characters were still acting like boys and jumping off trees, doing what teenage boys do. Throughout the book, they all seem anxious to grow into men and fight in the war. The first change I noticed is how the book starts out in a fun, relaxed, carefree summer and turns into a strict, rule-based autumn and eventually winter. The change was not just in seasons, but in the characters as well. Finny starts out as this talented athlete and eventually turns into a crippled teen that will never be able to play sports again. Gene definitely matured the most. He went from almost being a valedictorian to an athlete. A lot of what Gene does and how he acts is influenced by Finny. For example, he only continued to do sports because he felt that he was a part of Finny and therefore needs to play sports for Finny. Both characters definitely changed a lot throughout the book. Everyone in the book changes in the end, but not all of them mature. The only person that still remains a bit childish is Phineas. I feel that to go with this theme of everyone maturing, that is why Phineas had to die.
“So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all - plus c’est la meme chose, plus ca change.” (Page 14)
“So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all - plus c’est la meme chose, plus ca change.” (Page 14)
Jealousy/ rivalry
Gene and Finny have a friend rivalry. Gene thinks that Finny
is always competing with him, which is how the rivalry started. In reality,
Finny has never even thought of envying Gene. Gene just always assumed that
Finny is trying to exceed in sports so he decides to exceed in his grades.
Gene is jealous of Gene’s athletic abilities and his ability to be liked by so
many. This friendly rivalry is not necessarily a good thing since Gene’s
jealousy might have been the cause of Finny’s accident. All this envy and
rivalry Gene feels towards Phineas is what prevented Gene from seeing how sincere
Finny actually treats their friendship.
Innocence lost to the war
The story is set during 1942, and that was a time during World War ll. One character that is directly impacted by the war is Leper. He goes off into war normal, and comes back suffering from hallucinations and basically lost his sanity. Leper was traumatized because of the war. There are other characters that are affected by the war as well. Though they aren’t fighting directly, they are exposed to it just by going to school. In the beginning of the book, the characters are enjoying their free and careless summer, but eventually they face the fact that there is a war going on. After that, they no longer seemed like the carefree teens that they were in the beginning of the story.