In a book about war, A Separate Peace, many themes and lessons are learned. In the novel, John Knowles expresses good and bad traits about war and the world war. War not only means country vs. country but person vs. themselves and person vs. person. In A separate Peace, John Knowles expresses this theme by Gene's war against Finny, Gene against society, and the effects of war shown by Leper.
             Throughout the story Gene, the main character and the narrator, feels that there is a war between Finny, his best friend, and himself. It is this feeling that causes Gene's to be mean to Finny and treat him unfairly. Gene first starts to feel his hatred toward Finny when he starts to envy Finny because of his excellence in sports. To make himself feel better Gene determines that Finny is trying to ruin his studies so he can be the most athletic and smartest person on campus. This thought infuriates Gene and he decides that he needs revenge. When Finny and Gene go for a double jump Gene shakes the tree and Finny falls out. After Finny hits the ground Gene jumps and is cleansed of all fear. Throughout the novel Gene is mean to Finny. This is revealed when Gene goes to visit Finny before fall session. Gene mentions the tree incident and starts a mini war in the household. Finny yells at Gene to stop talking about that it or he will hit him. Gene replies saying that would be impossible to do since Finny can't stand up with out help. After saying this Finny starts to hurt both mentally and physically and Gene leaves making this the last time he is extremely hurtful to Finny.
             Ever since Gene shook the tree everyone expects he did it intentionally except Finny. Gene did commit the crime intentionally but he doesn't want the rest of society to find out. Some people think that he did it for different reasons. The first person who suspected is Brinker. He accuses Gene for the crime to get extra space in the do...