Finny's Point Of View Analysis

John Knowles exhibits a biased and psychologically complex point of view from Gene’s perspective. For this assignment we had to pick a scene and put it into Finny’s point of view just like Knowles did. This was very hard for me because there were a lot of scenes that I could of picked from. But after thinking and re-reading a couple of different scenes I chose to do the scene where Gene visits Finny in the hospital and the scene after that where Gene then goes to Finny’s house to tell him that he jounced the branch. It was a very simple decision for putting Finny’s thoughts in. After Gene admits that he is at fault for Finny falling off the branch, Finny refuses to believe that Gene would do that. This becomes obvious to the reader as seen

Finny thinks: ”I REFUSE TO BELIEVE YOU I repeated in my head again and again. Maybe if I said it enough it might actually become a reality. If he doesn't stop, I will get violent” (Strouch 6). This exhibits Finny's anger and disbelief towards Gene. To further this, later in the book Finny calls Gene and talks to him and we as readers get some clues as to how he feels. Finny exclaims, “‘Saving my place for me! Good old Devon. But anyway, you wouldn't have let them put anyone else in there, would you’” (Knowles 75) As soon as Finny gets on the call with Gene his first instinct is to see if he had been replaced, this shows how firstly, Finny valued their relationship and even after Gene had admitted he jounced the branch, but at the same time, it also hinted at the point that Finny was a little but doubtful and self- conscious because his first thought was to see if he had been replaced by someone else. Both in my re- written piece and the original passage, Finny clearly respects his friendship with Gene and doesn't want to believe that Gene caused the accident, but at the same time, he has an inner conflict as to if their will be damaged and awkward