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A Separate Peace Character Analysis

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In the book A Separate Peace, it shows contrast between two students friendship. Gene is a young boy at Devon military boarding school. And experiences problems at the school with the relationship between him and his best friend. He shows compassionate friendship to Finny his best friend, but rapidly gets violent to his state of mind. Looks at Finny as if he is the enemy. And is trying to stop him from looking good. Gene starts to compete towards Finny but silently. As he starts to think Finny is holding him back from being smart. He sets a goal to be valedictorian, and starts to get violent with Finny. For example, “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envy him that a little, which was perfectly …show more content…

Because of this, Gene sometimes envies Finny, and is not surprising when his jealousy bring violent actions. For example, Gene says “ A way of sizing up the world with erratic and entirely personal reservations, letting its rock like facts sift through and be accepted only a little at a time, only as much as he could assimilate without a sense of chaos and loss”(13.46). Gene’s violence makes him dangerous towards Finny. And messed up Finnie’s life resulting in emotion and physical trauma. When Phineas hears and suspect that Gene is the one that is hurting him he runs and falls down stairs resulting in his death. Then Gene see’s Finny cry for the first time and hear him yell at Brinker saying “You got the rest of the facts Brinker! You get all your facts! He plunged through the doors… Then these separate sounds collided into the general tumult of his body falling clumsily down the white marble stairs.”(11. Pg. 106).Phineas is hurt emotionally when he hears the group suspect Gene making him fall. Finny doesn’t believe any of it but tries to make them stop. But Brinker won’t stop talking about it. Then Finny runs out and falls down stairs and dies. This is a tragic moment that shows ignorance in the human heart and can destroy someone or even

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