A Separate Peace

The next morning, Gene wakes at dawn and watches the sun rise on the beach. He looks at Finny who, in the dim light, appears to be more dead than asleep. Anxiously, Gene considers the three-hour bike ride ahead and his trigonometry test at ten o’clock. Although he tells Finny it’s already seven, Finny insists on taking a quick swim before returning. Over the course of the night, they lost the seventy-five cents that amounted to their entire pooled financial resources, so they are forced to head back to campus without breakfast. Gene fails his test, and it is the first one he has ever flunked. Finny accuses Gene of working too hard. Gene, who has the potential to be valedictorian, realizes that, if he becomes the top student in the class, his academic achievements will be on par with Finny’s athletic ones. Gene asks Finny if he would mind if Gene becomes valedictorian, and Finny responds, “‘I’d kill myself out of jealous envy’” (48). Although Finny is joking, Gene realizes that he is masking the fact that he would be jealous.

Miserable, Gene suggests that another student, Chet Douglass, is more likely to achieve the honor. Gene reassures himself that although he hates Finny for breaking the swimming record, Finny has hated him for his nearly straight As last semester.