A Separate Peace

Gene’s roommate, best friend, and unwitting rival is the most important figure of Gene’s story. Phineas, also known as Finny, is the only major character in the novel with no last name. He is exceedingly likeable, with an ability to charm his way out of trouble that secretly infuriates Gene. Finny is also the best athlete on campus. His athletic ability comes easily to him, and he is noncompetitive but still expects to win. When Finny, with no practice or preparation, defeats the Devon School swimming record, he declines Gene’s urging to make the new record official. Finny is daring and impulsive, often showing very little concern for potential consequences. For instance, he wears a bright pink shirt despite Gene’s warnings that the other boys will mock him. Finny pushes Gene to be daring as well, convincing him to jump out of a tree on school grounds into the river, even though Gene is afraid every single time.

Finny prefers fantasy and innocence to uncomfortable reality. He chooses to dismiss Gene’s initial confession of causing Finny to fall out of the tree. Finny concocts a conspiracy theory in which the war is fake in order to deflect his own disappointment at being unable to enlist. When Brinker tries to force the truth of Gene’s role in Finny’s fall, Finny becomes so upset that he storms out and falls down the stairs. When Gene goes to Finny in the infirmary, Finny forgives him for having a momentary surge of anger, even though that anger results in changing Finny’s entire life. In the end, when Finny dies, he becomes a sacrifice to the lesson that Gene learns about petty aggression and violence and the basis for Gene’s character shift.

During the Summer Session, Leper lives across the hall from Finny and Gene and becomes a part of the secret society the two form, although he is too afraid to jump from the tree into the river, a requirement for initiation. Leper becomes much more important after the summer semester. A nature lover, Leper collects specimens and spends large amounts of time sketching or photographing what he sees on nature walks. His tendency to draw instead of pay attention causes him to become sequestered in his own world. During the winter semester, Gene comes upon Leper in the woods, traveling on his skis and searching for a beaver dam. Although Leper claims that skis are not meant to go fast, he is seduced by video of the US ski troops and enlists in the military.

The loss of innocence that results is the cause of Leper’s downfall. Unable to adapt to military life, he begins to hallucinate. Leper leaves the army— he is presumably AWOL but also most likely eventually receives a Section 8 discharge for mental health issues—and returns home, emotionally scarred. The experience makes Leper see his time at Devon in a new light, and he comes to the conclusion that Gene deliberately caused Finny to fall from the tree. Leper returns to campus, and Finny notices him spying from a bush. Brinker calls him in to testify against Gene, and Leper is insane but firmly accusatory. 

Brinker appears in the Winter Session, taking Leper’s room across the hall from Gene (and eventually Finny) when Leper is moved across campus. Brinker is an overachiever who takes a leadership role in a multitude of campus organizations. Although he looks like he is athletic, Brinker prefers politics. Brinker almost immediately voices suspicion to Gene about Gene’s part in Finny’s accident; however, he does so in a roundabout, joking manner. In Finny’s absence, Brinker and Gene become close friends. In particular, Brinker and Gene bond when shovel snow off the railyard. After seeing a train full of newly recruited servicemen go by, the boys talk about the war and enlisting. Brinker expresses disgust at their classmates, who seem keen to wait until they graduate. He decides to enlist right away, and Gene agrees to do the same.

When Finny returns, those plans are derailed, and Brinker loses his position of leadership in Gene’s life. Although he doesn’t explicitly state jealousy over Finny’s displacing him, his manner changes. Brinker withdraws from all of his campus clubs. Brinker’s staunch and unyielding approach to morality becomes apparent when he holds a trial to discover the truth about whether or not Gene caused Finny’s injury. Although Finny does not want to pursue the question, Brinker pushes the trial forward in the name of truth, justice, and Finny’s lost service to the war. After Finny dies, Brinker seems to have learned a lesson similar to Gene’s. What seems right is not right if it causes human suffering.

A substitute teacher for the Summer Session, Mr. Prud’homme contributes to the lax summer atmosphere by enforcing only the rules he knows. This means that he confronts Gene and Finny for missing dinner but doesn’t think to chastise Gene for admitting that they took an illicit trip to the ocean and slept on the beach. Additionally, Mr. Prud’homme is easily charmed by Finny. Although the two have missed nine meals over the course of two weeks, Mr. Prud’homme simply laughs at Finny’s explanation and lets the issue go. 

Mr. Patch-Withers is the substitute headmaster for Summer Session. Although Gene describes him as stern, he is, like Mr. Prud’homme, amused by Finny’s charm. He first confronts Finny for wearing a bright pink shirt. Mr. Patch-Withers and his wife host the traditional term tea, at which Finny directs conversation to the war. While arguing about the ethics of bombing, Finny accidentally displays that, in lieu of a belt, he is using a tie. Moreover, he has inadvertently used his school tie, which is against the rules. But rather than disciplining Finny, Mr. Patch-Withers finds Finny’s off-the-cuff explanation to be entertaining if “illogical” (22), and he just laughs at the transgression. During the regular term, he teaches American History.

Chet Douglass, one of Gene’s classmates, is one of the boys present on the first evening that Finny talks Gene into jumping from the tree. He is also, according to Gene, a potential frontrunner for class valedictorian if Gene does not overtake him. However, as Gene describes, “Chet was weakened by the very genuineness of his interest in learning. He got carried away by things” (50). In this way, Chet’s passion for academics is similar to Finny’s love of athletics. They are both legitimately enthralled, and more concerned with the pursuit of what they love than beating the competition. At the Winter Carnival, Finny enlists Chet to play trumpet, and Gene notes that he is so excellent at playing trumpet and tennis that he makes both seem easy. However, Gene describes him as being a minor player in their class because he is “obliging and considerate,” and “you had to be rude at least sometimes and edgy often to be credited with ‘personality’” (150).

The campus doctor, Dr. Stanpole is the medical professional who initially treats Finny after both his fall from the tree and his tumble down the stairs. He also operates on Finny’s second injury, and Finny dies on his table. Dr. Stanpole is pragmatic, urging Gene to help Finny come to terms with the loss of his athleticism when Gene presses for some measure of hope that Finny might make a full recovery.

Gene describes the doctor as talkative with an extensive vocabulary. After Finny dies, Dr. Stanpole relates his death to the war, noting that boys of Gene’s generation would likely be hearing the news of their friends’ deaths quite often. Dr. Stanpole becomes emotional about Finny’s death, explaining that there was no reason not to set such a simple break himself, comparing the risks of an operating room to the risks of war and asking, “‘Why did it have to happen to you boys so soon, here at Devon?’” (214). Unlike most of the adults who are preparing the boys for war, Dr. Stanpole recognizes the senselessness of war from the point of view of a person whose profession centers on preserving life. 

Mr. Ludsbury, who oversees Gene and Finny’s dorm, returns in the Winter Session as an unwelcome force for stridency after the laissez-faire attitude of the Summer Session. He questions everything that strikes him as suspicious, such as Gene returning to the dorm soaking wet after falling in the river, or Finny and Gene training on their own time, even though these things are not against the rules. When he confronts Gene and Finny for training, Mr. Ludsbury asserts that all athletic training should be in service of the war rather than games. He becomes too furious to speak when Finny disagrees. Mr. Ludsbury is a strict disciplinarian and expects his orders to be followed without question.

Cliff Quackenbush is the manager of the crew team, and he has a superiority complex that Gene finds repugnant. On the first day of crew practice, Gene arrives late, and Quackenbush’s scolding turns into a physical altercation. Gene asserts that “there was something wrong about him” (74). Gene becomes particularly angry when Quackenbush suggests that Gene is handicapped, which Gene perhaps takes particularly personally because of Finny’s condition. Their wrestling match lands them both in the river, and Quackenbush kicks Gene out of his role as assistant team manager. Quackenbush is generally disliked, and when he announces that he plans to wait to finish school and then be drafted rather than enlisting, his classmates make fun of him and essentially call him un-American. He reportedly has two potential spots lined up in the military academy in either officer training or dentistry—meaning he will be afforded the opportunity to go to college rather than straight into the war.