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A Separate Peace Character Analysis

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The novel, A Separate Peace is about two friends named Gene Forrester and Phineas (Finny) who both attend a boarding school called Devon School in New Hampshire. The story takes place during World War II, but begins less than a year after Pearl Harbor (1941). The two seem to compete with each other a lot and consider themselves friends but sometimes that is questioned because instead of supporting each other, they compete with each other. Gene Forrester is about 5’9” tall and weighs 140 pounds. He's described as an introvert that stays in and studies a lot because he cares about school and strives for good grades. In chapter 4 Gene is late to his trigonometry test and ends up totally flunking it, so he is very disappointed because of it and becomes more committed to his studies. Gene is also non-confident about what he does because in chapter one Phineas climbs up the tree to jump in the lake no problem, without being scared, and when Gene goes up it's a different story. Finny sends him up there and he is in a mild state of shock. Luckily for Gene he doesn't have to jump because the dinner bell rings. To avoid it Gene wants to be on time for dinner, but finny makes fun of Gene and they wrestle each other to dinner. Gene seems to also be competitive with other people especially in academics. For example on page 54 Gene says, “I became quite a student after that. I had always been a good one, although I wasn't really interested and excited by learning itself, the way Chet

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