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#5 A major change in the main characer

May 24, 2013 by dfrazier   

In “A Separate Peace,” our main character, Gene, changes majorly in the middle of a novel.  At the beginning, Gene is a very self-disciplined individual. He is very academic, and one of his main goals is to be valedictorian of his class.  By the end of the book however, Gene is much more different.  He is not exactly opposite from how he was in the beginning, for instance he wasn’t a slacker but just different in the sense that he seemed more mature or a little wiser than he was in the beginning. But what exactly caused this change? There are several different event that happened to Gene that could have made hi change, and people could argue over which event exactly changed his maturity level.  Some of those events that people would consider are when Gene pushed Finny out of the tree, or when Gene experienced Leper’s insanity and how he was effected by the war.  In my opinion however, I believe that an entirely different event led to the increased wisdom of Gene.  This event is when his best friend Finny died.  Whenever the typical human loses someone that they love very dearly, they generally feel an extreme amount of sorrow and weep over the death of that loved one.  However, Gene reacts in an entirely different way.  Not once does he ever cry for Finny, and because of this I believe that Gene and his character changed dramatically.


2 Comments »

  1. mholcomb says:

    Good blog I liked your ideas. there are only technical issues like mini spelling things, but over all I agree with you and i can tell you thought about this. good job again!

  2. Mason M. says:

    Hey Drewbie. I never thought of putting Gene’s change in term of other people’s experiences. Gene didn’t actually experience those events but he is able to witness other’s emotions, such as Leper’s insanity and Finny falling from the tree (as you mentioned). As well, Finny’s death did have an effect on him and I think it’s because he no longer has to depend on Finny. Gene finally becomes his own individual.

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