In this chapter, Gene observes that Finny lives his life according to "inspiration and anarchy." But Gene, cautious and conventional, cannot finally abide such freedom.
Always the true innocent, Finny sees no difference, really, between his philosophy of life and his philosophy of sports. Sports, he paradoxically believes, produces only winners and never losers — and so it is with life, he assumes. Such radical innocence, as charming as it may be, threatens Gene and finally turns him away from Finny.
As the chapter opens, Gene begins to reconsider his double jump with Finny at the end of the previous chapter. Yes, Gene thinks, Finny saved his life, but it was because of Finny's insistent risk-taking that they found themselves in such a dangerous situation in the first place. Finny did not so much save his life, Gene concludes, as nearly get him killed.
Finny's inspired idea to form the Super Suicide Society simply compounds Gene's growing fears about their friendship, because the "suicide" here seems to suggest Gene's own possible self-destruction. According to the rules of the club, Finny and Gene must now jump from the tree every night, and Gene "hates" it. For Gene, the Suicide Club represents a kind of slow psychological suicide — the gradual loss of himself, as he sees his own identity eclipsed more and more with each evening's jump by Finny and his idea of life-threatening fun.
