In the beginning of the book finny breaks his leg. Gene was climbing up the tree at the same time and he bounced on the branch and made it shake. When finny fell and broke his leg a huge feeling of guilt came over gene. (chapter 4)
In the middle of the book finny opens up about his desire to do great in sports. He had great athleticism and even wanted to go to the Olympics. Since he fell and broke his leg gene felt guilty because he knew it was his fault that his dreams wouldn’t be accomplished. (chapter 8)
At the end of the book finny dies while getting his bone set and after it is broken again. Gene was the cause of the meeting he stormed out of and he feels like if he didn’t fall down that he wouldn’t have died when he was getting the bone reset. (chapter 12)
A similar life experience I’ve had was when me and my family went camping and me and my cousin went walking in the woods. When we got to the end of the trail there was a brick ledge and I pushed my cousin off making him break his arm. I had to carry him back to camp because he passed out after seeing all the blood. When asked what happened I said I tripped over a stick and ran into him when I tried catching myself.
People often withdraw from the real world in result of guilt. I have seen guilt in football. In a game one of our offensive lineman let up a sack by giving poor effort and giving our quarterback a concussion. The lineman after the game hung his head and felt bad.
I am writing to all the people that have ever felt guilt or anyone who has had something done to them in which the other person might feel guilty.
I want to write this open letter to incite change. In doing this I feel like people while feeling guilty should understand that sometimes things happen that are just accidents. Like in my situation I didn’t want to break my cousins arm, I just wanted to play around. It was never my intention to push him over the edge but to maybe scare him by pushing him close to the edge.
In the story gene was a boy that went to a private school during ww2. He had a friend finny that he got to know very well. An accident happened between them that made finny suffer for the rest of the book. During the book gene suffers from great guilt that he hurt finny. Finny wanted to go to the Olympics and since he couldn’t he wanted to train gene. As the book went on talks of the war grew and even someone from the school enlisted. Toward the end of the book the truth is almost brought out about how finny was hurt and he re breaks his bone. When he is getting it set again he dies from bone marrow entering his blood stream.
The issue was when finny wanted gene to jump out of the tree with him and gene shook the limb making finny fall and break his leg. It was represented by gene having guilt.
I chose it because it was relatively the same issue and feeling of guilt. My connection is the camping accident I had with my cousin.
My audience is anyone who has ever been affected by guilt and who has ever has been guilty. My issue is still relevant today because people still feel guilt throughout day to day life.
The purpose of my letter is to tell people about guilt and how it affects people.
The connection with my book was with my cousin and our camping trip accident. I pushed him and he accidentally went over a ledge and broke him arm. I had to carry him back to camp.
