In this chapter by going to Finny's house, Gene is trying to do the right thing. However, it may be too little too late. Gene has been thinking about Finny and the accident for the entire month he has been back at home, and has been ruled by the guilt of not only causing his friend to fall, but also withholding the information that it was him who moved the branch. Gene goes to Finny's house to try to apologize and come to terms with his guilt, but in the end it does more harm than good. Although Finny has regained some of his charisma and energy from the first time Gene saw him, he is still unable to even get out of a chair by himself. However, since he does seem more himself, it means that he has come to accept the fact the he won't play sports again. When he first heard this information, he was probably heart-broken and depressed. Now that he's over it, Finny is ready to move ahead with his life. Gene coming to visit him brings back memories of the event and stirs up old emotions, and Gene's confession has a negative impact on Finny. After Gene tries to confess, but Finny is sure he is just confused, Finny says "Go away. I'm tired and you make me sick. Go away," (Knowles 70). Even though Gene is just trying to do the right thing, it makes things worse by giving Finny even more emotional grief by causing him to rethink the event that ruined his life. He has to wonder if it was actually his best friend that caused his injury, and for anyone this would be a pretty mind blowing concept to wrap your head around. If I were Gene, I would have done the same thing. Once I feel guilty, the guilt never goes away. It's all I can think about until I admit or apologize. Gene is just trying to gain closure, but this is hard to do when the person your apologizing to doesn't believe you. This just makes it worse, because it makes Gene realize that they weren't competitors, that the concept of being rivals with his best friend was "so ludicrous I wanted to cry," (Knowles 66). In the end, although all Gene did was try to confess to his crime, it had a negative impact on Finny, and definitely a negative impact on their friendship.
(Maggie)
I respectfully disagree. I believe that Gene was not trying to do the right thing when he told the truth to Finny. He was only trying to do what Finny would have done. When he is in the infirmary and doesn't know what to do, he thinks "If Phineas had been sitting here in this pool of guilt, how would he have felt, what would he have done? He would have told me the truth." (Knowles 66) So, Gene wasn't trying to do hat he himself thought was right, he was just trying to do what he thought Finny would have thought was right. When he decides to tell Finny that he was just confused and that he didn't really bounce the tree at the end of his visit to Finny's house, this is because he really thought that that was the right thing to do. He thought that it would do Finny more harm to know the truth, and he made his own decision to do what he thought was right in his own mind. This may have not been the right decision, but here Gene was trying to do what he thought was right as opposed to doing what he thought that Finny would have done.
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