A Seperate Peace - FInny How Things Change

In the novel "A Separate Peace," by John Knowles, a boy named Gene visits his high school 15 years after graduating in order to find an inner peace. While attending the private boys' school during the second World War, Gene's best friend Phineas died and Gene knows he was partially responsible. Phineas, or Finny as he was sometimes called, was the most popular boy in school. He was a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. Gene, on the other hand, was a lonely, self-sufficient intellectual. Somehow the two became good friends, or so Finny thought. Gene, unfortunately, was bitten by the green-eyed monster of jealousy. Gene just couldn't come to grips with the idea that a person of Finny's stature would want to be his friend. Gene's envy grew to a point where he was willing to severely injure Finny for being too perfect. Unfortunately for Finny, Gene succeeded. Finny's seeming perfection, his strong beliefs, and his ability to forgive trace his development throughout the novel.

Finny's seeming perfection was the basis for Gene's resentment towards him. Gene thought that everything Finny did was perfect, which just upset Gene all the more. Finny was so perfect that he didn't care what o

Finny was a great person and one of his best qualities was his ability to forgive. Gene and Finny became friends again once Finny was able to return to school. All seemed well until the boy in the room across the hall started to get suspicious that Finny didn't accidentally fall out of the tree. He wound up tricking Gene and Phineas into going to a investigation to find out what really happened. The investigation included the testimony of a witness who was at the meeting when Finny fell. He said, "they moved like an engine... The one holding on to the trunk sank for a second, up and down like a piston, and then the other one sank and fell." Finny realized what had happened and took off out the door, but then slipped on the marble steps and rebroke his leg. Gene felt terrible remorse and he hid in some bushes just so he could talk with Finny. Finny was still upset the first time Gene was able to talk to him through the window at the infirmary, saying, "You want to break something else in me!" Gene was able to speak with Finny, face to face, when he was asked to bring some of Finny's clothes to the infirmary.

"It was some blind impulse you had in the tree there, you didn't know what you were doing. Was that it?"

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