In the book A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, there are many events that occur at Devon, a School in New England. The major events are centered around two boys who were named Finny and Gene. These boys have been friends for awhile and are roommates at Devon, but they differ in their qualities and characteristics. Finny and Gene are both athletic but Gene is different in personality and in the way he views competition. Finny and Gene show signs of being athletic as their characters are developed through the novel. Finny seems to be more athletic than Gene, but Gene still has the ability to do sports that Finny does before Finny’s leg is shattered. Their athleticism is shown when they’re playing blitzball (a game created by Finny) and Gene comments to himself “Blitzball was the surprise of the summer. Everybody played it; I believe a form of it is still popular… But nobody can be playing it as it was played by Phineas. (Knowles 39)” Both Gene and Phineas played this game during the summer along with a bunch of the other boys at Devon. Since they all played outside, it implies that the boys may not be the most athletic, but they were …show more content…
He was trying to be better than Finny in his grades to prove that he was better. When Finny beat the swimming record he told Gene “By the way… we aren’t going to talk about this. It’s just between you and me. Don’t say anything about it, to… anyone.” Gene gets frustrated at this and comes back with “Not say anything about it! When you broke a school record!” Gene clearly is showing his competitive nature when he says this, since it doesn't even affect him and yet he is concerned that the record being broken will go unrecognized. Finny, on the other hand, was being free-spirited and didn’t care if the record was recorded because he just wanted to do it. Therefore, Gene is more competitive than Finny and is a competitive