A seperate peace

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In John Knowles novel A Separate Peace the quote "Everything has to evolve or else it perishes" (125), serves as a realization that instead of dwelling in the past, everything needs to move forward or else it will be left behind to be forgotten. This quote refers to the boys. Throughout the book they have to be able to deal with all that is thrown at them including all of the changes that are occurring during the war. Each boy has evolved in some way. Gene is finally learning to except his emotions, Finny is admitting the bad, and Leper the person you would least expect to be in the war joined the war.
Gene is the narrator and protagonist of A Separate Peace. He suffers from all PDF the regular teenager ailments; self consciousness, jealousy, an identity crisis, and uncertainty. It is obvious from the start that Gene holds a great deal of admiration for Finny. Finny is a hero, an athlete, and a God in Genes eyes. Gene admires Finny, but naturally, Finny is also the competition. Finny gains what Gene lacks. Finny has the talents for sports, better conversation and actions and could easily be described as the perfect "Devon student". Gene May get better grades, but he goes unnoticed while Finny is able to corral the boys into any activity and talk even Gene himself into breaking the rules. Gene admits to jouncing the limb of the tree on that one summer day of 1942, and he even admits his crime to Finny. It is unknowing whether this crime was subconscious, a blind impulse or consciously malevolent. The source of our facts is Gene himself which makes it even more of a rocky situation. It could be that Gene over stricken with guilt jounced the branch, or that he has imagined these antagonist thoughts which were never really t...

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...ne his best friend, and he doesn't rat him out during Brinkers investigation in the butt room. Instead he defends Gene and himself by saying "I don't intend to implicate myself. I'm no fool, you know. I'm not going to tell you everything and have it used against me later. You always did take me for a fool, didn't you? But I'm no fool anymore. I know when I have information and it might be dangerous" (176). As for Gene, he is responsible, traumatized and loses his innocence. He has established as he mentions in the first chapter, " a growth and harmony." "Everything at Devon slowly changed and slowly harmonized with what had gone before. So it was logical to hope that since the buildings and the deans and the curriculum could achieve this, I could achieve, perhaps unknowingly already had achieved, this growth and harmony myself" (12).

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