Better Friend Gene or Finny

The two main characters of the novel, A Separate Piece, were Gene and Phineas, or Finny. These two were best friends who went to the same boarding school, the Devon School, in New Hampshire. During the story, Gene and Finny faced some very difficult conflicts and obstacles that greatly affected their strong friendship. Throughout these disputes, I think that Finny turned out to be the better friend. Phineas is a more loyal and leader-like figure than Gene and actually helped Gene to find something in himself that he did not know was there. Loyalty was something that Finny greatly possessed and that was obvious. After Gene intentionally jounced the limb, causing Finny to fall, Finny did not go off and tell every boy at Devon what happened. He put the thought of Gene doing such a thing to the back of his mind until people started to question Gene on it. Finny did not want to believe that this happened one bit, since he thought him and Gene were inseparable friends who would never do something like that. This faithfulness Finny had to Gene throughout their friendship was so strong that it was almost admirable. Finny was the most athletic boy at the Devon School. He always engaged in sports and different activities, searching for a game to invent that everyone could play in. Gene always tagged along and of course played with all the other boys. When Leper was being bullied by Brinker, Finny stood up for him, even though he was "the nerd" of the school, and Leper highly respected and adored Finny for what he did for him. This leader-like quality of Finny put him way ahead of the game than Gene. As the story