Finny's Fear In A Separate Peace

One summer day Gene and Finny acted upon a life altering decision for the both of them. The tree was meant for the seniors who were preparing for war but Finny decided it would be a fun idea to start a summer club that involved jumping out of the tree. “The class above, seniors, draft-bait, practically soldiers, rushed ahead of us toward the war. They were caught up in accelerated courses and first-aid programs and a physical hardening regimen, which included jumping from this tree.” (Knowles pg.15) If the soldiers were not preparing for war Finny and Gene may have never jumped put of the tree causing Finny to break his leg. This was not an action Gene would normally perform. For example, “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and the my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled side-way, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud.” pg.60 Gene acted upon this behavior because of jealousy. Not only was there a real war going on, an internal war was happening between Gene and

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

While the adolescent males conveyed valiant desires, they all remained fearful of the future. Finny was the one who possessed the ability to enliven his solemn peers. Rather than wallowing in his thoughts, Finny hosted the winter carnival. A social function of such magnitude kept the teenagers from focusing on the war, but rather on their several youthful possibilities. While enjoying himself at the carnival, Gene reflected, “It wasn't the cider which made me surpass myself, it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, and separate peace” (9.128). Gene repeatedly implied “peace” at Devon School, however this was only acquired thanks to Finny helping peers mentally escape the war. Though Finny viewed his actions as a positive diversion, Gene’s paranoia began to obscure his judgment. Gene retained a deep-seated loathing for Finny, mainly due to jealously. After convincing himself that Finny was sabotaging his educational achievements, Gene shook the branch both boys were standing on. Finny plummeted downward and injured himself to the extent of never being able to participate in sporting events again. When analyzing his greatest fears involving Finny in chapter four, Gene stated, “He had never been jealous of me for a

Finny's death causes the greatest maturity growth in Gene's character. After Finny dies, he realized how his own hatred caused the death of his best friend. "He came to understand Finny's innocence and purity which causes Gene to see flaws within himself and forces him to grow up" (Alton 1). Being able to admit your own flaws is critical in maturing. When Gene finally sees his impact of immature behavior, he realizes how much he needs to mature. Even though Finny is physically gone, his spirit remains with Gene and essentially makes him the adult that he grows up to be. Finny's death is a crucial part of Gene's coming of age. When Finny dies, Gene's immature behaviors also die. Because Gene's hatred was gone, he entered war as a man.

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

Once Gene told Finny that he purposefully jumped in the tree to make Finny fall, Finny had to realize that the perennial friendship he believed he had with Gene, may have been built on lies. In the book, Finny’s first expression after being told that Gene caused his fall was actually a facial expression; “he looked older than I had ever seen him” (Knowles 99). This shows that as Finny heard his best friend admit to wanting to hurt him, the only person he had put his full trust in. Even though we don’t get to see what Finny is actually thinking, it is safe to infer Finny felt naive, and was completely shattered. Finny’s trust in Gene and throughout the rest of the novel, their friendship is never restores until the last few pages. Towards the end of the book, Finny completely loses his innocence when he finally admits that the war was actually occurring. In the book, once he sees Leper hiding and decides that he is crazy due to the war. Finny then says, “‘then I knew there was a real war on’” (Knowles 241). Throughout the novel, Finny stood very firmly on his belief that the war was fake -- that no one could hate each other that much -- but once he decided to admit that it was real, it was like his hope had gone

The reason this change in the novelhappens is because Finny has made it a point to prove to Gene that the war was not real. Thereader can infer from this behavior that Finny only wanted to keep Gene around him so he wouldnot be lonely. However as the story continues the reader figures out that this inference was truealong with another. This other hidden truth was that Finny was only pushing the war awaybecause he was not able to be apart of the war. After the reader finds this out the minds shit asthey find out that the last bit of innocence thatFinny had was that him and Gene could not be friends if he had enlisted.The reader notices that up until the point that Finny broke his leg that he was this perfectimage in people's eyes. However when he does break his leg and walks around the school incrutches those people have a different view on him. This change in perspective notifies thereader in that loss of innocence in Finny and at

“But I no longer needed this vivid false identity . . . I felt, a sense of my own real authority and worth, I had many new experiences and I was growing up “(156). Gene’s self-identity battle ends and he finds his real self. Gene’s developing maturity is also shown when he tells the truth about Leper. His growing resentment against having to mislead people helps Gene become a better person. When Brinker asks about Leper, Gene wants to lie and tell him he is fine but his resentment is stronger than him. Instead Gene comes out and tells the truth that Leper has gone crazy. By pushing Finny out of the tree, crippling him for life and watching him die; Gene kills a part of his own character, his essential purity. Throughout the whole novel Gene strives to be Finny, but by the end he forms a character of his own. Gene looks into his own heart and realizes the evil. “. . . it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart” (201). He grasps that the creation of personal problems creates wars. Gene comes to acknowledge Finny’s uniqueness and his idealism and greatly admires his view of the world. He allows Finny’s influence to change him and eliminates the self-ignorance. At Finny’s funeral Gene feels that he buries a part of himself, his innocence. “I could not escape a feeling

Despite some critics consideration of Finny as naive because he fails to realize the reality in the war, he truly desires a life without confrontation. During the boys’ conversation of the infamous war, Finny relays his emotions towards the topic when he describes the war as fake and a conflict created by “ ‘fat old men’ ” (107/115). Although the war prowls around at Devon and damages souls like a savage beast, Finny’s reluctance to accept such a violent act reveals his humanitarian effort to truly keep peace within his community, school, and country. Finny’s innocence also manifests when he remains friendly to his peers within the Devon School. Gene recounts how Finny’s kindness blooms as he believes that “only [Finny] was never afraid, only [Finny] never hated anyone” (204). Gene’s statement proves true since Finny never hurts anyone in his lifetime. Gene ironically does the opposite when he causes the death of

This can be supported by Gene and Finny’s love/hate relationship, The competitiveness that Gene and Finny had between each other, and how Gene was part of the reason that Finny died at the end of the novel.

Because of Finny's charisma, he is able to get others to do things that they normally would not do such as when Gene is jumping from the tree and/or training for the Olympics. “ Come on, drawled Finny from below, stop standing there showing off”(1.10), when Finny says this he is encouraging Gene to jump and face a fear he has. Gene later says “ Why did I let Finny talked me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?”(1.11) At this point in time Gene realizes that Finny is so charismatic that he is able to talk him into doing foolish things. Gene realizes that he is being imprudent, and that the amount of charisma being brought into the situation has some kind of a hold on him, Finny sometimes makes people feel like they just have to do it. He does this by the way he handles things, the tone in his voice, and amount of energy/charisma he put into a situation, and/or the way he brings the best or worst out of

The envy Gene felt for Finny drove him to a state of mind where his goal was to beat Finny or at least be tied equal with him. Gene had an academic advantage over Finny and at first thought that they were even, but he ended up thinking that, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies”(Knowles 53). He tries to focus more on his studies in order to beat Finny. Eventually, Gene is consumed by his envious ways and he finally makes a

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.

The effects of the war is a major theme and example of how an external conflict reflects on an internal conflict. Both Finny and Gene express in their own ways how the war has affected them. Finny has an interesting philosophy on the war. He denies that the war is even happening! At first, the reader is not sure why Finny denies the war but the reader later finds out that the reason he neglects the war is because he is unable to participate due to his injury. “I’ll hate it everywhere if I’m not in this war! Why do you think I kept saying there wasn’t any war all winter?” (190) Finny is heartbroken with the fact that he can not participate in something he always hoped to be apart of. Prior to his injury, Finny was always able to engage himself

Majority of them are under disillusionment when it comes to the participation in the war. Leper is one of the boys who must face his demons to grow. As the war was going on, Leper decided to join the war because he thought that he would be assigned on ski patrol. Although he thought ski patrol was going to be easy, he wasn’t mentally prepared about the war. Thus, causing him to desert which made him feel ashamed, depressed and confused.