A Separate Peace

A1: Gene goes back to the school after 15 years and goes to the spots where the accidents had happened. This gave him a sense of overwhelming peace that he can go back and see how much things have changed but also stayed the same.

A2: I believe Gene has the most flaws. First there is the fact that he is high tempered. You see this quality many times throughout the book. Quackenbush calls him maimed, Gene punches him. Leper talks about how crazy he is, Gene pushes him and runs away. Brinker tells him to stop joking with Finny, He gets all defensive and yells at Brinker. Also he is overly dramatic, in scenes like the one where they fight over studying. He over reacts and thinks Finny is trying to ruin him. He also thinks Finny tried to ruin his trig test by dragging him to the beach. He was overdramatic. Gene doesn’t trust people as well as he should. He always thinks they are out to get him.

A3: I believe Trust is a huge piece in A Separate Peace because Gene never trusted Finny enough to figure out that he was only trying to help him have fun. No one ever trust each other as they should. Gene never trusted anyone really, he was always under the impression that they were only befriending him so they could break him down. He was always insecure you could say. He only ever trusted after the first accident. Even then he couldn’t trust himself.

B1: I believe that in this part Gene was referring to himself. This books conflict was truely between Gene and himself. Finny in my mind was a freak representation of who Gene could be and wanted to be but was too scared to try to be. Gene was always wanting to be this other thing but never pushed himself to do it. Finny found a way to push him to this point. Once Finny broke Gene wanted to break. Gene beat this enemy of being this funny popular guy. He beat himself, killed this other Gene so he could truly be himself not what he was trying to be.

C6: “And you do