Who was Gene's Enemy: Finny or Himself?.
In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the main character and narrator Gene was living a life full of war. All events in Gene's life were now being effected by the war going on around him, but more importantly, his internal "war" with himself and his friends. Gene knew that he would never be as good as his friend Finny, and this made Gene think of Finny as more of an enemy than the best friend he was. While telling of his days at Devon, he says that in that summer he fought his own war and killed his enemy, leaving one to wonder if the enemy spoken of was himself or Finny. By reading the book, one can tell that Gene did in fact have a large amount of envy towards Finny, but it is obvious that it his himself that is the true enemy. .
Gene envied everything about Finny, his athleticism, his outgoing personality, his wit, his charm, and his amazing ability to get out of any trouble he ever got himself into. With his emotions towards Finny, admiration, jealousy and amazement, he wasn't sure on what he really felt. He admired almost everything about him, yet wanted to be him so bad that he would do anything to diminish his greatness. Gene knew that no matter how hard he tried Finny would always be better than him and to him, this was not acceptable. Instead of accepting that he had an inner-enemy with himself, Gene tried to play it off as though it was really Finny that was his enemy. This is shown in the very beginning of the book in Chapter One, page 10. This is when Finny and Gene had just jumped off of the tree and Finny says that Gene never would have done this if he hadn't "shamed him into it," and although Gene knew it was true, he wouldn't accept the fact that without Finny in his life he would have backed out of everything.
Finny also had a way of getting out of any trouble that he got himself into. .
By injuring Finny, Gene played a HUGE role in his death.
