A Separate Peace
...e a stroll to the Devon Prep swimming pool. Finny attempts to break the school record. He accomplishes the task on his first try. After the sprint, Finny humbly states, “Swimming in pools is screwy anyway. The only real swimming is in the ocean.” Finny politely asks Gene not to mention the swimming record that Finny clandestinely broke. As one can easily see, modesty is definitely a quality of Finny. After he broke the record, he acted as if it was “no big deal” and changed the subject but asking Finny if he would enjoy going to the beach. The combination of athleticism and modesty create Finny to be a character of exceptional integrity. As the story proceeds, Finny creates a sport called “Blitzball.” Blitzball is a game that involves a medicine ball. The person carrying the medicine ball is “it” and everyone chases him knock him down. The person able to tackle whose “it” gains possession of the ball and the game restarts. Finny created the game so that there were no winners or losers. When the boys play blitzball for the first time, Finny yells out, “There aren’t any teams in blitzball. We’re all enemies.” Blitzball can be easily viewed as a game that expresses Finny’s character. As like Finny, the game involves athletics and a modest objective with no clear winner or loser. The humble qualities that Finny contains and his spectacular adroit skill for sports, combine mutually to create the individual of Finny. There are an abundant amount of incidents where Finny uses his sly kind of innocence to sneak him out of getting in trouble. Early in the book, Gene and Finny travel off to the river and miss the dinner. At school the next morning, Mr. Prud’homme, a substitute teacher for the day, thinks of a punishment for the two boys due to their absence at dinner. The quick wits and enthusiastic behavior of Finny enable the two boys to be excused from punishment. Shortly after the incident with Mr. Prud’homme, Finny wears a vivid pink colored shirt. He slyly walks around in the bright shirt as if there is no dress code at all; he does not get caught. Consequently, this causes a small amount of resentment from Gene towards Finny. He’s envious knowing if he tried to do the same stunt, he would most likely be disciplined for the violation. In the same day, Finny again breaks the dress code. He wears the school tie as a belt almost appearing as a way of disrespect to Devon Prep. Once again, Finny uses his quick wits to weasel himself out of another violation. The tricks and wits of Finny help entertain the reader. One wants to keep reading to see what kind of mishaps Finny will encounter next. Finny may seem perfect, with his athletics and sharp personality, but he contains one flaw. His flaw is his unavailability to notice that his way is not always the way that everyone wants. His failure to recognize this hurts Gene and Finny’s relatio...