Throughout the story Finny is a very manipulative person. A good instance of this was when he manipulates Mr. Prud’home. After Finny and Gene get in trouble for missing diner to jump out of the tree he tells …show more content…
Throughout the Gene goes along with everything Finny wants, and if he tries to refuse Finny manipulates him into doing it. A great example of this in the book is Finny's denial of the war. Finny says “ Don't be a sap,” he gazed with cool self-possession at me, “ there isn't any war” (pg. 115). The reason this makes him self-centered is because he believes that the war is fake he expects Gene to think the same way. He forces Gene to train for a false Olympic, he uses Genes guilt over his accident (another instance of Finny being manipulative) to live through him. Then he starts to separate Gene from his other friends. When Gene and the other guys start to joke about Leaper and the war Finny tries to get Gene away from them, he wanted Gene to be around him alone. But maybe the worst part was his motive, he knew the war was real he never doubted it, but because the army wouldn't take him he started to put on the charade. Finny is not perfect and like everybody else he can be selfish and we get to see that throughout the book. A Separate Peace is told from the point of view of Gene, and because of that we get to see all his bad qualities. But a side effect of it being from Gene's point of view and his thoughts we hardly get to see the other characters true selves. As readers we can see all of Finny's negative qualities no matter how hard Gene tries to hide them. In Gene's eyes Finny is perfectly capable of no sin, and is blinded