Essay about A Separate Peace: What Really Happened in the Tree?

Gene’s act of purposely causing Finny to fall out of the tree forces him to feel guilty and move on from his tendencies of jealousy and anger. After Finny’s fall, Gene discovers that Finny is so faithful as to not even accuse Gene of his actions. This causes Gene to begin to feel extreme guilt, thence

Gene was jealous of Finny throughout the whole book because Finny was more athletically inclined then him, and Finny was able to do basically whatever he wanted to.¨ I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn't help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little¨(8). This lead Gene to want to be better than Finny, by being first in the class. One night while Gene was studying Finny interrupted him, as he wanted to go jump out of the tree. After a little argument Gene eventually went with Finny to the tree, but he was still kind of angry. This lead Finny to jounce the tree limb. ¨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¨(28). Because of this fall, Finny completely shattered his leg. He may have been able to walk again, but he would never play sports again. Because of Gene's jealousy toward Finny he decided to make a rash move, which cost his friend their

Finny did a lot of risky things, that most people would not be able to pull off, but somehow he always manages to slip away with no punishment. Unknowingly, Finny went to a party, the headmaster was also attending it. As usual, Finny was out of dress code, wearing a neon shirt and their school tie as a belt. Somehow he talked himself out of trouble. Gene says “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying him that a little (Knowles 9).” Finny continued testing his luck, with skipping chapel and classes, and test, and meetings. In the article "A Separate Peace: The Fall from Innocence" James Ellis writes “Incapable of the spiritual purity of Phineas, Gene finds himself jealous of Finny's ability to flout Devon rules.” All of this grew on Gene and started to make him very jealous of something he did not have. Trying the ultimate dare, Finny decided to go to the beach, Gene says “The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely out of all bounds. Going there risked expulsion (Knowles 20).” Finny went through with his plan and spent a night at the beach, and received no punishments or disciplinary actions. As Gene was struggling with his identity, he saw that Finny could do things he could not. All those things made Gene jealous and gave him something to focus on, other than solving his identity

In the beginning of the novel, Gene, is a clueless individual. He sees the worst in people and lets his evil side take over not only his mind but also his body. During the tree scene, Gene convinces himself that Finny isn’t his friend, tricking himself into thinking that Finny is a conniving foil that wants to sabotage his academic merit. Gene is furthermore deluded that every time Finny invites Gene somewhere it’s to keep him from studying and

The climax of A Separate Peace is when Finny falls out of the tree by the river. Gene immediately thinks that he jounced the limb and he is at fault for Phineas’s broken leg. Gene’s guilty conscious came out and told Finny that he jounced the limb, but Finny would not believe it. Gene couldn’t believe this rivalry had come to a fateful end. Gene was put on trial and the truth came out to Finny. He had fallen down the stairs and broken his leg again. During surgery, Finny had passed away due to a bone marrow flowing through his blood stream and straight to his heart. Gene couldn’t believe that Finny, his best friend, had passed away. Had this all been from his doubting of Finny? Did he cause Finny’s

At the start, Gene is instantly jealousy of Finny, creating a fake friendship that is fueled by competition. This is shown when he wants to do something so he is good at, so he “was becoming the best student in the school: Phineas was without question the best athlete, so in that way we were even” (Knowles 55). This proves that their friendship is fueled by competition because it shows that Gene always wants to be even. This

Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him in many ways. Gene begins to lose his identity and start conforming to Finny. According to Knowles, “If I was head of the class and won that prize then we would be even…” (27). This quote explains how Gene follows finny by trying to be head of the class with him. Gene gets jealous of Finny being head of the class, so he tells him if he was head they would be even. When Finny introduce jumping off the tree to Gene at first he didn’t want to do it, but he wanted to be like Finny so he did it. In Knowles words, “what was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me? (5).

Gene’s envy and intimidation of Finny caused great internal turmoil with himself throughout the story. He went through and identity crisis because he was unsure of who he was and who he wanted to be. In the story, Gene said, “I went along, as I always did, with any new invention of Finny’s” (Knowles 117). He always went along with everything Finny proposed or did; this gave him little to no time to discover who he really was. This lack of personal discovery lead him to doubt who he was. This internal conflict within Gene also affected his personal actions. Before Finny’s fall, Gene said, “I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb” (Knowles

“I wanted to see Phineas, and only Phineas. With him there was no conflict except between athletes… This was the only conflict he had ever believed in.” (page 152) When Gene returns from Leper’s house, all he wants to do is see Finny. Gene says that Finny never believed in any conflict, which alludes to when Gene admitted to making him fall out of the tree, and Finny refusing to believe him. Gene wants to forget about what happened, as the event is fresh in his mind after coming back from Leper’s. He still subconsciously trusts Finny to not bring up the subject of what happened at the tree.

He thinks Finny is trying to sabotage his studies so that he can be number one at that too! In reality, Finny is just trying to be a good friend. Gene is jealous of Finny’s athleticism, but he covers it up by the thought that all Finny wants to do is hurt him. In attempt to have some fun, Finny wants Gene and some other boys to jump from a tree limb into a river. This challenge is something that has never been done by a boy their age. After doing it once, Finny later convinces Gene to leave his studies and come do it again. While the boys are on the tree limb, Finny stumbles, falls into the river, and breaks his leg. Since Finny can no longer participate in any sporting events, he decides to train Gene for the 1944 Olympics. Gene eventually comes to the conclusion that “[Finny] had never been jealous of [him] for a second. Now [he] know[s] there was and never could have been any rivalry between [them]” (Knowles 78). Gene realizes that Finny wasn’t ever jealous of him, and that pushing Finny from the tree is a mistake that he will later regret. Finny dies after falling down the stairs and a failed surgery, so Gene begins to feel guilty for his actions. Gene had earlier decided to enlist in the war, and had told the other boys about it. After a lot of thinking, he eventually decides not to enlist in the war. Gene now begins to see the wrong doing he had participated in earlier,

Although Phineas clearly had a negative relationship with Gene, some people argue that he was an acceptable friend because he was able to forgive Gene for making Phineas fall off the limb. When Gene visited Finny in the hospital after he learned that Gene jounced the limb, at first, Finny felt betrayed, however, after he saw the guilt on Gene’s face, he realized that, “it was just some kind of impulse decision… [Gene] didn’t know what [he] was doing” (Knowles 191). Then Finny knew that he didn’t do it because Gene despised him, he jolted the branch because he had no time to think about what he was

Gene and Finny are faced with many situations where either good or evil will take over their decision. When Finny falls of the tree Gene “took a step toward him, and then [his] knees bent and [he] jounced the limb” (Knowles 60). Gene purposefully makes Finny fall even if neither of them realizes or accepts it at first. When Gene makes the decision to cause Finny to fall, he lets evil win. He lets it take him over to benefit himself in the long run. On the other side of it, when Gene tries to tell Finny that he did intentionally hurt him he said “of course you didn’t do it. You damn fool. Sit down, you damn fool” (Knowles 70). Finny does not want to accept the fact that his friend would do such a thing to him. He pushes out the evil that could have let him lash out at his friend and let the good in him refuse to believe it. Lastly, when Gene was fighting with Quackenbush all of a sudden Gene “hit him hard across the face” (Knowles 790). Gene lets the evil take over him and hit Quackenbush in the

Normally when you think of friends, you do not associate them with fear. It seems like Knowles associated fear with Gene's friends. After purposely jostling the tree branch to injure Phineas, Gene did not want to immediately tell Phineas what had actually happened. Gene said that his fear of jumping off the tree branch was forgotten after this event. Phineas did not know if he had fallen on his own or if he had been pushed by Gene. Gene was understandably worried about Finny's reaction to this conversation, so he put the conversation off for as long as he could. He also did not completely trust Phineas. Even though they were supposedly friends, Gene thought that Finny was secretly one of his rivals. Gene said, "The way I believed that you're-my-best-friend blabber" (Knowles 53). Finally, Gene showed that he was fearful of his friends toward the ending of A Separate Peace. When Brinker decided that there must be a trial to determine what had happened to Phineas, Gene fretted about what his fellow students might discover about him. Brinker said, "What I mean is it wouldn't do you any harm, you know, if everything about Finny's accident was cleared up and forgotten" (Knowles 160). He did not want them to find out about his role in Finny's injury. After Phineas injured his leg rushing down the steps of the Assembly Hall, Gene seemed to have a sense of fear until Finny died. Phineas never seemed to fear Gene, even after he had found out about Gene's role in his injury.

First, Gene admits to being guilty of shaking a tree in order to injure Finny when he visits him at his home, making Finny livid, and temporarily tearing them apart. Gene is envious of Finny’s athletic ability and bravery. One way Finny shows his bravery is by jumping off a tree for fun. Gene is greatly threatened by the bravery, so he decides to strip it from Finny by shaking the tree one day, making him fall and suffer an injury. Consequently, he instantly regrets his decision, but he realizes that the damage is done. Remorsefully, he wants to apologize for his terrible choice, but when he tries to talk about the situation and confess, Finny is in denial and starts to get angry. Finny’s denial is evident when he says “‘I don’t know anything. Go away. I’m tired and you make me sick. Go away’” (Knowles 70). This dialogue shows how Finny did not believe that Gene caused the incident even after the confession. This is because he believes that Gene would not do such an action. The confession tears Finny apart to the point that he lashes out at Gene and wants him to leave his house. If Gene did not commit the notorious action, Finny would not have to feel the pain physically from the injury, and mentally from the idea that Gene would hurt him, and the boys could have a stronger friendship.

Throughout the rest of the novel the two fight to mend their bond and discover the truth. They were best friends but this situation challenges their relationship. Gene does not intentionally mean for Finny to plummet off the tree although he does try to joke with him by jouncing the limb.