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Notice the vocabulary Gene uses to describe Finny sleeping on the beach the next morning as dawn breaks: \"he looked more dead than asleep... gray waves hissing mordantly... gray and dead-looking... the beach... became a spectral gray-white... Phineas... made me think of Lazarus.\" John Knowles likes to set a mood by painting a background portrait of nature\'s face.
Sometimes mood is as simple as our feeling cheerful on a sunny day or mournful on a cloudy one. Sometimes it\'s as obvious as the womblike effect of the old and comforting Devon School buildings, whose walls insulate the boys from the outside. This time Knowles makes us feel a sense of foreboding, only to end it suddenly when Gene remembers an obligation closer at hand: his trigonometry test.
Finny insists on one more swim, their bicycle ride back to school wears Gene out, Gene can\'t think straight and flunks the test--all because of Finny. Blitzball follows, then the required evening leap from the tree over the river, then it\'s back to studying.
As the two boys sit opposite each other in their room, their heads bent over books in a pool of light, we note yet another important difference between them. All along Finny has conceived of Gene as a natural scholar certain to graduate at the head of their class, paralleling Finny\'s natural ability as the top athlete. In Gene\'s increasingly confused mind, however, he thinks of his intellectual prowess as a threat to Finny\'s superiority. Gene convinces himself that Finny is plotting to disrupt his concentration. Was the trip to the beach a part of some grand scheme to interrupt Gene\'s studies again and again with an unending series of diversions and games? \"If I was the head of the class on Graduation Day and... won [the scholarship award], then... we would be even.\" This is a turning point for Gene, a revelation that transforms in an instant his perception of their friendship.
Gene\'s fearful thoughts run wild, and he fights to keep a calm exterior even as the whole structure of their relationship crumbles in his mind. Gene convinces himself that Finny could never stand the thought of the two of them coming out \"even,\" the one in sports and the other in studies. He convinces himself in moments that he and Finny are the very opposite of friends, that they are bitter rivals to the finish, each out for himself alone. \"You did hate him for breaking that school swimming record, but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term. You would have had an A in that one except for him. Except for him.\"
The dark thoughts fall like hail. All the doubt and resentment Gene has been suppressing for so long break free to discolor memories of bright summer days passed in innocent play. Suddenly it appears to Gene that their games were all part of Finny\'s master plan to bring about Gene\'s downfall: \"It was all cold trickery, it was all calculated, it was all enmity.\"
NOTE: Gene\'s revelations force us to look back and reexamine everything that\'s happened between the two boys thus far. Can we agree with Gene\'s interpretation, or is he making it up out of desperation, as a means of escaping Finny\'s grasp? Is Finny really a devil rather than a saint, a demon rather than an inspiration to all who come in contact with him? Is it fair for Gene to blame Finny\'s basic strength of character for his own lack of certainty and strength? Can Gene\'s resolute reversal hold sway for the rest of the story, or is it merely a passing phase, though a dangerous one, on the road of a good friendship that will have its ups and downs but will ultimately, if it is a true friendship, survive adversity?
It\'s interesting to see how Gene, remaining true to Finny\'s rule about always winning at sports, converts his gloomy interpretation into a positive path for himself. Once he decides to accept in his own mind that he and Finny are \"deadly rivals,\" he plunges into his studies with new vigor. Once again Finny has inspired Gene to action. Isn\'t this ironic?
Gene takes on the same spirit of dedicated competition that Finny lives and breathes by--with one important difference: Gene\'s competitive edge is sharpened by his need to attack Finny.
Gene is a confused young man. On the one hand, as summer deepens, he becomes excited by his newfound power. On the other hand, he frightens himself with his newfound hatred for Finny, especially when, caught up in the day-to-day pleasures of school life, he forgets how he is supposed to feel about his \"friend.\" We wonder how clearly Gene has decided how he feels about Finny. He will tell us confidently, \"it didn\'t matter whether he showed me up at the tree or not,\" and then he\'ll become all worked up when Finny tries to distract him from his studies. It\'s not easy just to love or just to hate another person. For Gene it\'s not a black-and-white situation. There are more gray areas than he would like to admit, and they cloud the words that pass between the two.
The pressure mounts with each passing day. Exam time approaches--Gene\'s opportunity to establish his superiority once and for all. But it\'s so often the case that the harder we try to learn from books, the more intensely we focus on the page, the harder it is to absorb the information we find there. Finny, who knows his friend, remarks that he is pushing too hard instead of relying on his natural intelligence.
One fateful evening, in the middle of Gene\'s study session for a French exam, Finny interrupts to announce that \"Leper\" Lepellier intends to make his first leap from the tree. As a founding member of the Suicide Society, Gene\'s presence is required. That is the last straw! Gene is on the brink of accusing Finny of distracting him from his work so that he\'ll ruin his grade, but once again there\'s a gulf between his inner suspicions and the words he speaks: \"Never mind,\" Gene says, giving in to his friend\'s guileless questioning, \"forget it. I know, I joined the club, I\'m going. What else can I do?\"
NOTE: Read this important conversation between the two boys closely, and you\'ll find it difficult at first to decide whether or not Finny is being manipulative. Is he trying to bend Gene to his will by acting as though he doesn\'t really care whether Gene comes along? Is he pretending when he confesses he didn\'t realize his friend ever needed to study? It\'s hard for us to tell where Finny stands because we\'re witnessing the scene through Gene\'s eyes, seeing only his version of the encounter.
Gene agrees to go. Perhaps he didn\'t really feel like studying and was only looking for an excuse to close the book. (All of us have had that impulse at times!) Perhaps, as he thinks on his way across the fields, \"there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us\" because Finny cannot be measured against any ordinary person. Finny is a superman. Has Gene\'s failing all along been his alliance, at this sensitive and vulnerable time in his life, with a person who by his very excellence makes anyone else seem small and insignificant in comparison? Or is the author trying to warn in general of the danger of comparing ourselves to others, whoever they may be?
The boys reach the tree, and Finny suggests he and Gene make the leap together, \"side by side.\" As far as he is concerned, they are equals; he accepts Gene on the same footing, and they should now demonstrate their faith and trust in each other by taking the ultimate dare together. This could be the moment when Gene establishes--before the audience of boys gathered on the riverbank--a kind of equality with Finny.
NOTE: Gene, standing high above the ground, may not be aware how many streams of doubt, fear, and hope are now coming together. We readers sense that he is at a turning point, and we wonder whether he has the strength to make a decision on his own. Can he go along with Finny\'s initiative, accept his friend at face value without doubting his motivations, and, most important, try to understand himself a little better?
Instead Gene (intentionally, or not?) \"jounced the limb,\" and \"Finny, his balance gone... tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud.\"
Gene, \"with unthinking sureness,\" makes a fearless leap into the river, as if, for the first time, with the fall of Finny, all obstacles to his success have been removed.
From this point life will never be the same for anyone in the story; like a drama focused on the rise and fall of a heroic figure, A Separate Peace becomes a tragedy.
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