Analysis Of The Story 'A Separate Peace'

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The story A Separate Peace starts out by introducing a young man named Gene Forrester. WWII was spreading across Europe at the time and Gene has a Flashback to prior events before the war when he was still in school. The story all starts during the summer of 1942 when Gene becomes good friends with his roommate, Finny. Gene, Finny and a few more friends decided to do something only seniors graduating before going to war do, jumping off a very high tree into the river below. The group of friends invents a society called the Super Suicide Society. They get a couple of more kids to join the society with every meeting you must jump off the branch into the river. Gene starts to fail his math test in school and wants to study more to improve his grade. Finny however tries to encourage Gene that he does not need to study and that they should go to tonight’s meeting where Leper is becoming a full member. …show more content…
Gene believes that in order to be even they both need to be good at a certain thing. Gene knows that Finny is an excellent athlete but poor when it comes to academics. Gene needs to feel that he must be the academic superior to be equal to his friend, but what gets Gene to come to the meeting is when Finny tells him “I thought you were just smart naturally”. By then Gene is kind of pissed because he puts lots of studying and effort into his work so he decides to come out of jealousy. When they were at the meeting it was Finny’s turn to jump but while he was moving towards the edge of the branch Gene bends his knees which are just enough to shake the branch and throw Finny downwards