The motivation of the two main characters, Phineas, the popular, handsome, suave athlete, and Gene, the reserved, marginalized, brainy outcast, who are immersed in the Weltanschauung of World War II, during the summer of 1942 in an elite New England prep school, where the rich, white Anglo-Saxons are privileged and there are no Catholics, Jews, nor ethnic immigrants, is a question of superiority and stereotypes engendered during the Zeitgeist of the 1930-1950's. Both boys are in a struggle for dominance, superiority, whether bronze, muscular, white-wealthy, country club ethos prevails or dark, intellectual prowess and keen and studious Gene who is unpopular, and an outcast next to Phineas' presence can compete. "It wasn't my neck, but my understanding which was menaced . . . . Now I knew that there was and never could have been any rivalry between us. I was not of the same quality as he. . . . Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to loo look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, . . . .I moved out . . . and jumped . . . every trace of my fear of this forgotten ( Knowles 59-60).
Anita W.
10/03/24