A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, is a story about two teenage boys who are supposedly friends, yet have more differences than they share similarities. The two main characters in A Separate Peace are Gene and Finny, who both attend Devon School. Gene does whatever Finny wants him to do out of fear that Finny will no longer like him. Finny, who thinks of Gene as his best friend, is unaware of Gene's real motives for obliging to do whatever he says.
             Gene is an insecure, negative, paranoid, competitive, and even malevolent person. Gene's insecurity is revealed to the reader when he joins the Super Suicide Society and participates in its meetings, despite the fact that its members have to jump out of a tree as part of their initiation. Gene's negative side is revealed in Chapter 3, during the first game of blitzball. When Gene realizes the tremendous odds against the "ball-carrier" and frets about it, he misses the main purpose of the game, which is to have fun. Gene's paranoia is revealed in Chapter 4, when Finny tells him that he is working too hard in school. Gene wrongly assumes that Finny is trying to sabotage his chances of becoming class valedictorian. Gene's malevolence is revealed in Chapter 4 when he goes to the tree to see Leper Lepelier jump out of the tree. When he and Finny climb on the tree at the same time, Gene jostles a branch on the tree, causing Finny to fall. Whether or not he jostled the branch on purpose, he also made no attempt to save Finny, and he made no effort to help him after the fall.
             Finny is an athletic, good-natured, humorously outgoing, naive, and modest character. Finny's athletic abilities are best shown in Chapter 3. Not only is Finny better at blitzball than anyone else in the school, and also able to swim in raging ocean water, but without a single day of training he broke a school swimming re
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