A Seperate Peace

First of all, Gene and finny had to deal with the fact that they are very different people. Gene was a very intellectual person, and Finny was very athletic. Finny was a superior athlete. This is very obvious when Finny broke the 100meter swimming record on his first try. “…he had broken A. Hopkin Parker’s record by .7 seconds”(35). This was an amazing feat. He had never practiced or swam competitively in his life. On top of this Finny was a very good overall athlete.

He had won and been proud to win the Galbraith Football Trophy and the contact Sports Award, and there were two or three other athletic prizes he was sure to get this year or next (43).

Furthermore the Devon School had two separate sessions. The book began in the summer and continued through the winter. They were two very different times at the school. During the summer session school everything was very relaxed. The whole attitude towards school was more laid back. In the winter months everything was much more organized and the teachers were stricter. This is mostly because many of the teachers and masters were substitutes. Gene let this be known when he said,

A final example of life’s contrasts is good vs. evil. This was seen in many situations in A Separate Peace. One major example of this is when Gene decides Finny is trying to undermine him. He made up a whole story in his head how Finny was trying to ruin his academic record. The fact is Finny was really trying to be a good friend. When Gene said he wanted to stay at home and study, Finny said, “Don’t go. What the hell, it’s only a game”(50). He also said, “I didn’t know you had to study. I didn’t think you ever did. I just thought it came to you”(50). Finny may have misunderstood Gene but he was still trying to be a good person. Gene makes Finny fall from the tree. The reader knows it was Gene who made him fall when he said, “Holding firmly to the trunk I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb

Some topics in this essay:
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