Gene Forester: is 17 years old, five feet eight inches tall and 140 pounds. He is not yet enlisted/drafted so his only job is a student at school which he excels at. Gene is one of the top academic students in his class and is striving to be the best. He is friends maybe even best friends with Finny although their relationship is somewhat complicated.


Symbolism

This is a Venus fly trap and it reminds me of Gene because even though it may look innocent and just like any other plant it is dangerous and has motives that aren't what people expect.

Character Analysis
Gene is the type of person that may seem like a "normal" teenager on the outside but is very, very complex on the inside. He is constantly over thinking/over analyzing everything and reading whole ideas into every little detail. Gene then takes those ideas he has and he runs with them. If he thought rationally for a few minutes, or even talked to someone he would find out his ideas were totally crazy and not worth acting on. For example when Gene finds out Finny beat the swimming record and wouldn't tell anyone Gene goes crazy. He feels he has to compete with Finny saying "If I was the head of the class on Graduation Day and made a speech and won the Ne Plus Ultra Scholastic Achievement Citation, then we would both have come out on top, we would even be even" (Knowles 51-52)I think part of this is that as a character Gene is not very confident and he feels like he has to prove himself- whether proving he is worthy to be Finny's friend or proving that he is the smartest making up for the fact that he doesn't excel in sports. The complexity of his character also has to do with all the guilt he feels and the inner struggle of one who has some deep dark secret that they simply cannot bear any longer; one who feels the need to live for someone else out of this guilt and one who feels " that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas." (Knowles 85)

Character Theme Tie-In
Gene helps illustrate the theme Humans in Conflict in the novel A Separate Peace. In the novel Gene is the character who struggles the most with everything. His main conflict is an inner one, where he is at war with himself and his feelings. Gene doesn't want to feel the rivalry he has between Finny and him; he fights with the guilt of jouncing the limb and whether or not he should tell anyone about it. After Finny shatters his leg the whole rest of the story ties around this inner conflict, as it grows and finally ends with the "trial" in the Butt Room and the fall of Finny.