Gene And Finny In John Knowles A Separate Peace

Separate Pieces

If the war can destroy a nation what can a war in the mind do? Gene and Finny two boys at Devon School in the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles are thrill-seeking and competitive. Jealousy can kill a man who can not control his desires. Gene and Finny are tearing each other apart from the inside out. The biggest danger to Gene and Finny’s relationship is not the war or school, it is the boys themselves. They both have strong personalities and different traits, when they collide it is like a bull and a ram similar beings but who will overpower who? They are both very competitive and become easily jealous of each other. They put themselves in dangerous situations and in following get hurt more often. Finny’s Persona is very

Gene studies and works hard to pass his classes whereas Finny fools around and plays sports instead of studying. Gene begins to become jealous of Finny’s athletic abilities “You did hate him for breaking that school swimming record, but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term. You would have had an A in that one except for him. Except for him” (51). Gene becomes absorbed in his anger and jealousy of Finny that he begins to put blame on him. He concludes that Finny wants him to fail school, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies….We were even after all, even in enmity. The deadly rivalry was on both sides after all” (45). Gene realizes fast enough that Finny can get away with anything he wants, Finny only follows his own rules. Even though Finny does only follow his own rules does not mean they are good rules to live by and Gene can not see

After creating “The super suicide society of the summer session” Gene and Finny invite their other friends at Devon to put themselves at risk to do the “fun” activities. "We'll form a suicide society, and the membership requirement is one jump out of this tree” (31). To the boys it seemed like a fun and innocent way to pass the time during the summer and also it distracted them from the main problem of the war. The boys assigned themselves to jump off the large oak tree. As Finny climbs up to the “platform” he is nervous; “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud” (52). When Finny “fell” he shattered his leg on the bank of the river. He was told he was not allowed to play sports or jump off trees. After hearing this news Finny is very upset that he can not do the things he loves. “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,’ and I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become part of Phineas” (77). They have become bonded because of guilt, Gene hurt Finny on purpose wether or not it