On his way to Violet’s house in his mother’s car, Little Bastard, Finch recounts a line from Cesare Pavese: “Love is truly the great manifesto; the urge to be, to count for something, and, if death must come, to die valiantly, with acclamation—in short, to remain a memory” (56). Finch says that he understands “the urge to be and to count for something.” Finch slams on the gas, and the faster he goes the more awake he feels.
When he gets to Violet’s house, she is sitting on the step, bundled in a big coat. She says she doesn’t need to talk, and Finch says there’s no use trying to deflect someone who has spent his life deflecting. Her parents are home, so they go for a walk, Violet steering them away from Amanda’s house. He asks her how long she’s been feeling suicidal, and she says she isn’t. Finch says she was up there because she lost hope and didn’t know what else to do, and then he pivots, asking about her website and writing.
Violet is aggravated by his persistence, and asks what he’s doing. He says he wants to know that she’s okay, and why she was up in the bell tower. Finally, she tells him that she didn’t think consciously about going up there, her legs just carried her. By the time she woke up, she was on the ledge, and she began to panic. She says that she hasn’t told anyone, not even her parents. Finch pushes, asking why she was up there that day. Violet says it was her sister’s birthday, she would have been nineteen. She goes on, saying that’s not why she went up, though; it was because nothing matters, everything is just “time filler until we die.” Finch says it might be true, or it might not, but that he’s pretty happy to be there, and something mattered enough for her to not jump. Driving home after Violet goes to bed, Finch takes the bridge where Violet and Eleanor’s car accident happened. He sees debris from the car, and takes the dented license plate home with him.
The domain for EleanorAndViolet.com is expiring. Violet reads the last post, an unimportant review of an unimportant book, which was posted the day before Eleanor died. She considers that she could revamp the site, make it more meaningful, more serious, and she writes down a few ideas, but then she deletes the website completely. Finch and his sisters, Kate and Decca, go to the obligatory weekly dinner at their dad’s house. Finch declines the food, saying he’s all set unless they have a veggie burger—he’s not eating red meat (in reality, it’s ’80s Finch, one of his several personas, who is vegetarian). Their father gets angry at this, saying that he was raised on meat and potatoes, and Kate tells him to calm down, that Theo doesn’t have to eat if he doesn’t want to.
Back home, Finch does some writing, as he often does, discussing a new method of suicide; this time, it’s poison, which he thinks is a cowardly method. Finch posts a line from Virginia Woolf on his Facebook page: “I feel we can’t go through another one of those terrible times.” Later, Violet responds with another Woolf line: “Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” They continue exchanging lines for a while, Finch cheating and looking them up online to keep the conversation going. Eventually, Violet says she received his rules for wandering, and she adds that they will avoid inclement weather, and will walk, jog, or bike. Finch says they should write about the wanderings—actually, that she should.
Violet and Finch are in the Bartlett Dirt, the gossip magazine with a powerful hold over the student population. The article is “Senior Hero Saves Crazy Classmate from Bell Tower Jump,” and the girls who run the real student newspaper are disgusted; Violet remarks to herself that she should have been friends with them instead of the other popular girls. Finch decides to ditch the ’80s Finch persona after he sees the photo of himself in the piece and decides that guy is too good, and wouldn’t stand a chance with Violet Markey. He goes to the thrift store with Charlie and Brenda and picks out a worn leather jacket and black boots, embracing his new persona: Badass Finch.
Violet and Finch meet in the parking lot after school and then go to his house to get his bike. She follows him into his bedroom, examines all of the post-it notes he has stuck up on the walls. They bike eleven miles to Hoosier Hill, their first stop for the project. Finch asks Violet where she would go if she could go anywhere, and she says back to California. He says he would go to Hoosier Hill with a beautiful girl. At the hill, Finch puts on an Australian accent to the other people there, and they stand side by side looking out from the underwhelming peak. Finch says they should jump, since it is in fact the highest point of Indiana, so they hold hands and jump. While Violet has been resistant to Finch up to this point, she notices the feeling of an electric current when he touches her.
Analysis:
There are several allusions to older literary works in this section, namely Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, with which Violet and Finch find a lot of resonance. The allusions contribute to a kind of meta-narrative at play: Virginia Woolf famously died by drowning herself in a river, and the characters’ fascination with her and her words can be felt in the echoes of Finch’s own depression. The Pavese quote leads Finch to his manifesto—to count for something—and this symbolic propulsion is exhibited in the literal propulsion of the scene as Finch drives fast to Violet’s house.
It’s clear at this point that Finch has decided that Violet, and getting her to be okay again, is how he’s going to make himself and his life count for something. He begins to be persistent with her, showing up at her house, questioning her about writing and driving, telling her they have an adventure to go on. Throughout it all, he is walking a fine line: be persistent, but also don’t reveal too much, because part of what he has going for him is the mystery. And it’s true, Violet is intrigued by him.
When Finch is helping Violet, he feels better about himself. Sentiments she expresses, which he can certainly relate to—for instance, that life is meaningless, and that there's no point in doing anything—he is able to hear and gently challenge, pivoting her toward a more positive line of thinking. It’s much more natural for him to do this with her than it is for him to do with himself, which speaks to an underlying theme of the book and its conversation with mental illness: people may not be able to save themselves, but they might be able to help each other.
Violet’s decision to delete the website, and her general disdain for writing, is a tangible move to emulate her sister’s death; if everything is gone already, there is nothing left to lose. Finch understands that this is what she’s doing and is determined to rehabilitate her love for writing, so he subtly asks her to record their wanderings. While Finch of course wants to spend time with Violet for selfish reasons—he likes her, and wants to make her like him, too—there is also an undeniable element of compassion to his plans.
The image of them jumping at Hoosier Hill is a significant one, as it hearkens back to the opening of the novel when they were both considering jumping off the bell tower. This time, of course, they are safe: they are on land, only jumping a matter of inches. And, importantly, they are together—not just side by side, but holding hands, and there is chemistry felt between them when they touch for the first time. It is a funny moment for them; they talk dramatically as though preparing for a big jump, and Finch makes a joke to the kids coming up the hill. Unlike the opening, when they are alone and scared, this time they are together. And this time they are happy.
