The Olympics, along with many other world wide occurrences, was created specifically to showcase a person's special talents. Sometimes, however, one looks at the contenders of such an acclaimed event with envy, resulting in jealousy. Often people can not help wanting what seems extremely natural and easy for some. Although not everyone is friends with a gold medalist, envy, as shown in the novel A Separate Peace, can indeed be found in friendships. Through A Separate Peace, John Knowles displays the idea that natural talent and abilities can cause jealously, even among friends.
             To begin with, natural physical talent causes envy among those who lack it. For example, one character, Finny, has natural talent in althletic activities such as Blitzball (31). Everyone saw that "[Finny] was sensationally good at it"(44). As a result, Finny's showcasing of such talent cannot help but make others, such as Gene, jealous. This also exhibits that even innocent games can help manifest the inner jealousy of friends. In addition, Finny breaks the school swimming record (50). This leads to Gene becoming overwhelming jealousy of Finny's accomplishment. Also, Gene starts to believe "[Finny is] too good to be true" (50). As a result "[Finny's] accomplishment . . . grew rapidly in the darkness where [Gene] was forced to hide it" (50). Because of the natural physical strength Finny has over his friends, Gene's jealously grows.
             Additionally, the natural ability to get away with or get out of certain situations, motivates jealousy. One example of this is when Finny uses a Devon school tie for a belt (29). Gene becomes excited thinking that "this time he wasn't going to get away with it" (29). After all of Finny's persuasion towards the authority, Gene finally figures out "Phineas was going to get away with even this" (30). This shows that Gene grows jealous of Finny's incredible ability to "get away with anything" (30). Gene also has a "...