After Gene caused Phineas to fall out of the tree Gene tried to clear his mind of what he did, “I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was.” (62) Gene eventually abandoned the idea of keeping his actions a secret and decided to come clean to Finny because “he (Finny) would have told me (Gene) the truth.” (66) Gene didn’t get the chance to tell Finny before he was sent away by Dr. Stanpole, but he took the first step in evolving into a trustworthy person. Gene finally tells Finny the truth while visiting Phineas at his home in Boston. In his attempt to make amends with Phineas, he agrees to let Finny train him for the 1944 Olympic Games. Even though Gene knows “there isn’t going to be any Olympics in ‘44” (117)he realizes that he took Finny’s chance of being in them away when he broke his leg, so he agrees just to make Finny happy. With Gene’s willingness to change and accept the things that had happened, it allowed him evolve as a person, thus resulting in his survival. John Knowles uses his two main characters, Phineas and Gene, in his novel A Separate Peace to demonstrate that “everything has to evolve or else it perishes” (125) Phineas causes his own expiry by refusing to accept the truth and change, and Gene ensures his own survival by evolving into a kind and trustworthy person by changing how he thought and how he