Finny forgives Gene for the first time, since he only just stopped denying Gene’s responsibility. There is closure in Gene’s statements about not hurting Finny out of anything conscious or out of hate, and Finny saying that he believes Gene.

The tree in A Separate Peace represents a place where young and naïve students prepare to be war heroes. Through their shared bravery, Finny and Gene bond and become best friends when they both jump out of the tree. Unable to blame his friend, Finny blames the tree for knocking him out of it.

Gene tells himself that Leper is crazy and that even if his testimony implicates Gene, no one will ever accept it. After a while, the boys return with Leper, who seems strangely confident and composed. As Brinker tries to bring Leper back to his senses, Finny rises and declares that he doesn’t care what happened.

Finny admits that Leper’s mental breakdown has convinced him of the reality of the war, and he tells Gene that he has even seen Leper at Devon. The boys hear Finny’s cane tapping and then the sound of him falling down the marble stairs.

How is Gene feeling on his way to the infirmary? Answer: Gene goes to see Finny to take him some clothes, the doctor requested them. Gene does not know how to feel or act, it’s like it’s happening all over again.

Gene does not cry at Phineas’s funeral because he feels it is his own, and you don’t, he says, cry at your own funeral. He experiences it as his own funeral because Finny felt like a part of himself: they were very close, and Gene believes he will never meet with his friend’s generosity of spirit again.

Finny’s death is symbolic of the fact that having to evolve, or become an adult, and face conflict was too much for him, so he literally perished. Finny’s death in A Separate Peace by John Knowles shows that Leper Lepellier is right and that everyone has to evolve, or else one will perish.

Gene spends the rest of the day in school activities, but returns to the infirmary at five o’clock to check on Finny after the surgery to set his leg. There he learns from Dr. Stanpole that marrow from the broken bone had leaked into the bloodstream during the operation and traveled to Finny’s heart, killing him.

Why does Finny apologize to Gene? Never accuse a friend of a crime if you only have a feeling he did it.

Distraught over the realization that Gene caused the accident that crippled him, Finny falls down the marble stairs at the front of the First Academy Building.

There Gene admits jouncing the limb deliberately in order to make Finny fall. Finny refuses to believe his friend, and when Gene insists he is telling the truth, Finny tells him to go away. The chapter begins by exploring Gene’s numbed reaction to the consequences of his unthinking action in the tree.

Gene was jealous of Finny, pure and simple. He didn’t mean to hurt him the way he did, but he didn’t trust Finny’s friendship, and he wrongly attributed his own negative feelings and behaviors on his friend.

Gene feels a tremendous amount of guilt and wearing Finny’s clothes is comforting. Wearing Finny’s clothing allows Gene to feel closer to him (he hasn’t seen him yet).

Gene struggles with complex emotions, often vacillating between adoration and envy toward his best friend. Gene lacks self-confidence and wishes he could be more fun-loving and easy-going like Finny. He also envies Finny’s ability to finesse his way out of difficult situations.

In A Separate Peace, the war symbolizes on a grander scale the same evil that drives Gene’s private evil. Thus, it symbolizes a war of jealous rivalry.

At the end of the novel, Gene concludes that what made Phineas different was his lack of resentment, lack of fear. Everyone, he claims, identifies an enemy in the world and pits themselves against it. Everyone that is, except for Phineas. Great, but the guy’s dead.

With the realization of Gene’s resentment Finny slowly loses his innocence and faith in himself as he accepts Gene’s betrayal in being his best pal and confidant. His gradual acceptance of his loss of Gene as a friend and Gene’s strange actions after the accident slowly break Finny’s heart and change his character.

Gene feels guilty about the accident because he knows how envious he was of Finny and cannot help but think that this envy somehow influenced his actions, even if only on a subconscious level. By dressing up as Finny, however, Gene purges himself of this envy by becoming the object of it.

By the end of the novel A Separate Peace, however, Gene loses his innocence because he becomes jealous and his paranoia causes many problems with his friendship with Finny. Gene let paranoia and feelings of mistrust lead him down a path of jealousy and he hurt a friend destroying a part of his innocence.

As you can see, Gene had much reason to push Finny out of the tree. It was from jealousy from Finny’s athleticism, his popularity, and his ability to talk his way out of almost anything.

Why can’t Finny remember what happened at the tree? Because the doctors gave him a drug. He feels uneasy because he doesn’t want to tell Finny that he made him fall while he is with Finny at Finny’s house.

Finny implies that a person can only have one “best pal” and names Gene his. homosexual love for Finny, but he panics and cannot express his feelings for Finny. Phineas causes Gene to have a moment of panic, but he copes by suppressing his feelings by reminding himself that Finny is trying to sabotage his life.

There Gene admits jouncing the limb deliberately in order to make Finny fall. Finny refuses to believe his friend, and when Gene insists he is telling the truth, Finny tells him to go away.

What is Finny’s fourth commandment? “never accuse a friend of a crime if you only have a feeling he did it.”