Five chapters into John Knowles novel, A Separate Peace, and it appears to have an interesting perspective into the psyche of adolescent boys. The main character and speaker, Gene, has struggled with juggling school at Devon- a boarding school preparing the boys for military service during World War II- his friendship with Finny and his jealous, love-hate relationship with Finny.
Finny is Gene’s best friend and arguably the school’s most gifted athlete. He created a club with Gene which he called the “Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session” because of the initiation process of jumping from the smallest limbs of a tree overhanging a river. Gene is reserved while Finny is much more daring, goading Gene into jumping with him. The best friends are the only boys in the junior class that have dared to jump in, making them the leaders of the Society. It is important to note that the first jump of the Society (they jump in to mark the beginning of each daily meeting) was almost a disaster. While up on the limbs, Gene stumbled and almost fell. Finny caught him and they jumped in. While the reader would argue that Gene should be indebted to Finny, Gene believes that the life saving act is balanced out by the fact that Finny forced him to go up there. He would have been saved if Finny were there or not. This is the first example of the intrigue of the teenage boys mind.
Finny is an interesting contrast to Gene at this point in the story. Gene is in the top two of his class academically. He works everyday to ensure that he stays there, and he really wants to be valedictorian. At first he disagrees when Finny points this out, but he realizes that he does, in fact, feel this way. Although he never admits it, he wants to match Finny’s athleticism and lack of fear. Every time the Society meets Gene is scared to jump, but Finny doesn’t know. Finny suggests they take a day to go to the beach. Gene has a trigonometry test the next day, but he doesn’t say no and Finny never asks. While Gene is too afraid to deny Finny, Finny likewise never takes Gene’s thoughts into account. Gene wants to be valedictorian because of the speech and recognition he will receive. In direct contrast to that, Finny and Gene are in the pool and Finny breaks a longstanding record. To Gene’s surprise, instead of sharing the feat with the student body, Finny insists on keeping it a secret. Finny was content with knowing that he had broken it, rather than everyone knowing that he broke it.
Gene was extremely jealous of Finny, and all he hoped was that Finny was jealous in the same way. Finny was such an incredible athlete, creating a game that he would excel at, his courage on the tree, breaking the swimming record, ability to escape trouble with ease. Gene only hoped that Finny was equally jealous of his academic prowess. Finny began to try as a result of the trig failure he had caused for Gene. In turn, Gene believed that this was a sign that he was jealous too, because Finny admitted to not being able to get anything better than a B. When the Society meetings continued to happen during the time of finals, Gene believed that this too was a sign of jealousy. If Finny could not raise his grades, he could just as easily damage Gene’s. This, as the reader soon learns, is not the case. This jealousy leads to a potential turning point in the story, when Finny falls from the tree.
