HENRY BAMFORD'S Assignment 11 Question 1

1) Is Finny's fall, and ultimately his death, something you can blame on Gene? Why or why not? If he is not to blame, then who is?

Finny's fall down the stairs wouldn't have happened if Gene hadn't made him fall out of the tree. The tree incident caused many of Finny's feeling about Gene to be bottled up. “ 'You get all the rest of the facts, Brinker!' he cried. 'You get all your facts!' I had never seen Finny crying, 'You collect every f---ing fact there is in the world!'... ” (Knowles 177). Gene's account of Finny's last actions before the fall at Brinker's trial clearly shows bottled up emotions. Gene has some role in the fall, but he definitely not the only person involved. Brinker is also responsible for Finny's fall because his trial freed the truth of what happened at the tree, which, as the reader saw, released Finny's true thoughts. Leper was another key person in the incident because of his detailed memories of the first fall. My point is, more than one person is responsible. Each comment at the trial was a part of pushing Finny to the breaking point. Many unnamed characters had roles in the fall.