Gene's Time Period

Over the summer session, Gene becomes close friends with Finny, an adventurous and amazingly trusting person. Gene, on the other hand, is a person who is more self-centered and doesn’t believe in Finny’s remarkable lack of hatred that makes him so unique. He believes that Finny is jealous of his academic prowess just like he is jealous of Finny’s superior athletic ability. Soon Gene realizes that his jealousy has blinded him to Finny’s authentic benevolence. Together they go on many adventures, and one day Finny and Gene decide to climb up a tree and jump into the river. Finny is balancing on a branch, ready to jump, when Gene accidently bounces the branch, causing Finny to fall. Finny broke his leg and was told that he would never be able to play sports again. Gene feels guilty about his role in the incident and tries to convince Finny that it was his fault. Finny laughs it off and doesn’t blame Gene for his role in the incident, showing more of his amiable personality. The summer session then ends, and both the boys go back to their homes. Gene visits Finny’s home, and he tells Finny that he bounced the branch on purpose. Finny doesn’t believe him and so Gene goes back to school. Brinker Hadley, a serious and responsible class politician, asks Gene if he wants to join the army with him. Gene agrees, but Finny’s return to the school causes his and Brinker’s idea to come to nothing.

Gene’s interaction with this ‘new’ post-war Leper drastically changes Gene’s viewpoint on the war. Before, Gene and the rest of Devon were always thinking Leper was doing something heroic, and how adventurous the war would be. But now, after meeting Leper once again, Gene realizes he doesn’t want to leave Devon and all the memories he has made. Finally, Leper continues to accuse Gene of causing Finny’s accident, and Gene responds in an unprecedented way that he never had before. “‘.Like a savage underneath.

Then, he wishes to become Finny the more he’s around him. Gene’s envy of Finny creates self-conscious in him. Gene exclaims, “We watch little lily-liver Lepellier not jump from the tree, and I ruin my grade” (Knowles 57). Gene decides that Finny is out to wreck his studies. He deliberates that Finny is distracting him only to pass gene. Gene’s jealousy gets the best of him Next, Gene’s envious behavior tarnishes his relationship with Finny. Finny loses reliance in Gene. Finny shouts, “You want to break something else in me!” (Knowles 184). After learning that Gene may have jounced the tree and his aid hurts him, Finny gets distressed. Likewise, Gene loses himself in Finny. They are not best friends, but the same person. The author says, “Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide” (Emerson). Gene believes his perseverance is to be Finny. Gene loses who he is and monitors Finny’s steps. Overall Gene’s behavior fluctuates his relationship with Finny forever. Lastly, Gene returns to Devon to discover his absence of

Gene Forrester: The narrator and protagonist, a mid-thirties aged man now going back to visit his old school. Gene is thoughtful, competitive, and intellectual. He tells us his story of his school experience using flashbacks showing what happened and how he felt in those moments. He’s competitive and controlled by his strong emotions. He sees the world in a hateful way and that’s all the world is, a fearful and hateful place. He fears that nothing has or will change, that he hasn’t changed since his years at Devon. He had a love hate relationship with Finny, his best friend, he was jealous of Finny because of his carefree attitude and his ability to get away with anything. He loved to think the Finny envied him for his intelligence when in

Visiting his school, Devon, fifteen years later, Gene realizes that during the time he was studying there fear surrounded them, and he had not noticed. However, with his return Gene realizes that the fear “had surrounded and filled those days” and now when revisiting he was “unfamiliar with the absence of fear”, with leaving Devon he escapes feeling of fear (Knowles 10). He did not fear those days that he spent there and looks at them as lessons that help him grow. No longer feeling the hatred he had once felt, Gene gains peace from within him, and as he loses his hatred he is able to accept the real, adult, world. With the hatred gone, Gene also loses the fury he had at people and at life. Getting rid of those feelings, that were once so normal to Gene, he begins to possess peace within himself, allowing him to come of

In his highschool years at The Devon School, Gene became close with a complicated group of teenage boys, like himself. His closest friend and roommate is a boy named Finny who is obviously the most outgoing and rebellious in the group. He is the initiator of most of their activities. Throughout the story it is obvious that Gene is jealous of his friend and therefore gets pressured into the things Finny puts on him. Because he is constantly following the crowd, Gene begins to lose his individuality and finds himself completely overcome with jealousy. Subconsciously, Gene even puts his best friends life at risk by shaking the branch of a tree while Finny was ontop of it at the time. As a result of this Finny falls off which disables him and ultimately leads to his

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

Throughout the book both characters realize they need each other more than they think. The more Gene justifies his feelings toward Phineas, the more he is ashamed of his actions. Gene is jealous that Finny is able to get away with anything and everything: “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.” (Knowles, 25). Gene’s envies Finny’s accepted rebellious character but is unable to tell him. Afterwards, Gene, towards the middle of the book, feels his need for Finny to get caught, almost as if he is against him: “This time he wasn't going to get away with it. I could feel myself becoming unexpectedly excited at that.” (27). Slowly Gene turns his jealousy for Finny to hatred creating the downfall of their relationship. At Devon Finny is known for his great athleticism and his ability to win at everything, ending up as first every time: "You always win at sports.” (35).Gene feels more jealousy towards finny especially when Finny breaks the swimming record without training, not only showing he can win but he can do it without breaking a sweat. Finny’s athletic ability reaches Gene’s mind and his anger builds up adding more weight to the bridge: “Was he trying to impress me or something? Not tell anybody? When he had broken a school record

In the novel, Gene, Finny, Leper, and others fear enlisting for World War II after they graduate. Gene says that many of the teachers "loosened their grip" on the boys, knowing what lay ahead of them after they graduate. As the school year progressed, the boys anxiety increased. They all knew what was coming up, though none of them wanted to accept

Gene and Finny had started off great in the beginning of the novel. When Gene came to Devon, Finny and his fellow friends accepted him and took him under his wing. For instance, all the boys

Gene was not referring to the killing of his own youth during his time at Devon boarding school, but the war between Gene and Finny. The war that had been going on the whole time they were at Devon. This war was more emotional and psychological than physical, and was a result of Gene and Finny’s tendency to be very competitive and jealous of one another. An example of this would be when Gene suspected Finny of trying to compete with him for class valedictorian, which Finny shrugged

This change is shown in “A Separate Peace” when the residing feelings of happiness fade to confusion and tragedy. As the summer session comes to an end, Finny falls from a tree and shatters his leg. Gene witnesses this and affirms “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…” (Knowles 52). This abnormal mistake in Finny’s behavior was caused by Gene’s recently developed feelings of resentment towards his friend. Gene thinks “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies” (Knowles 45). Gene purposely jounced the limb Finny was standing on due to his rash feelings of animosity. These feelings are conveniently aligned with the season shift by the author to add character development and change, as well as symbolism and depth in his writing. Gene’s shift from a trusting, willing friend to a skeptical, apprehensive enemy shows how the season of fall changes the characters in this novel. In final analysis, autumn brings about a negative change in the boy's psyche and forces them to face unpleasant realities and come to terms with their friendship.

Little sorrow and sadness is expressed around school, even in Gene; no one talks about what happened but everyone remembers, especially Gene. Throughout the novel, John Knowles' strong characterization of Finny results in a more developed and wiser Gene; in the end, Finny actually makes Gene a better person.

Second, the injury puts Finny in the hospital, separating the two, which cause Gene to suffer depression. As Finny is badly wounded, he has to leave his boarding school, Devon, for a long period of time. He spends his time in the hospital, away from Gene. FurthermoreThis makes Gene regret his decision even more. Not only are Gene and Finny physically separated, but also emotionally separated. Essentially, Gene loses his

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,