Term Papers on A Separate Peace: Finny - How Things Change

Term Paper Title	A Separate Peace: Finny - How Things Change
# of Words	1040
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.16

A Separate 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 others thought,
like when Finny wore a pink shirt as an emblem after the bombing of central
Europe. " '...Pink!  It makes you look like a fairy!'  'Does it?'  He used this
preoccupied tone when he was thinking of something more interesting than what
you had said."  One time Finny and Gene were at the swimming pool when Finny
noticed that a boy named A. Hopkins Parker had the record for the 100 yards free
style.  When Finny realized that A. Hopkins Parker had graduated before they
came, he remarked,  "I have a feeling I can swim faster than A. Hopkins Parker."
He was right.  Gene was ecstatic that Finny could do such a thing without any
training or anything.  All Gene could say was, "You're too good to be true."  In
certain ways he was.
     Throughout the book Gene knows that Finny has some strong beliefs.  The
first three he noticed were: "Never say you are five feet nine when you are
really five feet eight and a half"; "Always say some prayers at night because it
might turn out that there is a god"; and "You always win at sports."  The latter
of the three was amazing because to Finny all you had to do was play to win at a
sport.  Unfortunately, this all added up to a point where jealousy overcame Gene
and caused him to injure Finny.  Gene and Finny had started a Super Suicide
Society which included a jump from both Finny and Gene at the beginning of every
meeting.  This time Finny came up with the idea that they both jump at the same
time.  They were in the tree with Finny farther out on the jumping limb when
Gene's "...knees bent and I jounced the limb."  Finny fell and shattered his leg.
Gene became overwhelmed by sorrow because he had caused his best friend to
shatter his leg.  The most athletic person in the school could no longer pl...

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