Chapter 11 Summary and Analysis

Troubled by Leper’s situation, Gene immediately needs the comfort of Finny and his world detached from the horrors of reality. When he reaches the school, he finds Finny engaged in a snowball fight with the other boys. Just as in a war, the players form sides, but the sides keep changing. This continues until everyone gangs up on Finny and drowns him in snowballs. This is indicative of the how Finny’s construction of reality will get broken and destroyed by war. It also shows that for the boys to move forward, they must eliminate things that represent childhood, which would be Finny. Later, Gene and Finny talk about his leg’s condition. Finny believes that his leg is getting better and Gene hopes that this is true.

The same evening, Brinker meets Gene and asks about Leper. Gene recounts what happened when he met Leper, making Brinker suspect that Leper has gone mad. Hearing this, Finny seems to sober up, for he now realized that there is someone who suffered far more than him. Gene tries to escape into Finny’s fantasy of the war not being real, but this time, Finny shatters that bubble himself. Leper’s suffering restored Finny’s sense of reality. With Finny himself breaking this fantasy, Gene no longer has anywhere to take refuge from the difficulties of reality.

Later, Brinker belatedly tells Gene that the reason behind Gene not enlisting is due to his pity in Finny. Brinker also tells that this pity toward Finny from Gene will make Finny wallow in self-pity. At this time, Brinker also tells that everything about the accident must be cleared so that people can move on, and he does so with a tone indicating that Gene was responsible for Finny’s fall.

The same day, Gene and Finny also discuss the existence of Caesar, an emblem of all things hated by Finny about the school. It is an environment that doesn’t allow the sustenance of life. Gene says that Caesar cannot exist and cannot be true and thought Finny would agree with him, but Finny does not. He tells Gene that the war is real. He also tells that he saw Leper hiding in the bushes, and that Leper’s madness convinced him of the reality and made him accept it. Finny also tells that he doubted Gene due to Gene’s runaway imagination and nervousness. Finny asserts that his own imagination is perfectly acceptable, and that he acknowledges as true what he sees. At this moment, Finny seems the one in control of his mind and has accepted reality, while Gene struggles to accept the very same.

That evening, Brinker and a bunch of boys abduct Gene and Finny to conduct a trial about Finny’s accident. Finny is unhappy and says that Brinker has no business interfering in this matter. Finny also shows that he does not want to revisit this incident as that would mean accepting that his best friend held some hate toward him.

During the trial, none of the boys are able to accurately recall what happened, and in order to proceed, they decide to find and bring Leper, who they believed remembered everything he saw. Leper tells the group in the trial that he saw one of them ounce the limb, but is unable to remember if the one bouncing was Gene or Finny. Finny is further upset with the proceedings and rushes back to his room. On the way, he trips on a set of marble staircase, the very same one the adult Gene visited in the beginning of the book and breaks his leg.