A Separate Piece Novel Review

...

Gene’s guilt towards Finny causes him to admit to purposely jounced the limb. Although he doesn’t admit it at first, and tries to hide the fact that he hurt his friend his guilt builds up inside and he ends up admitting what he did. When he does the first time Finny immediately makes him take it back because it hurt Finny to know that his best friend hurt him. He also fully admits to it at the end of the book. He states “because my war ended before I put on that uniform; I was on active duty all the time at school; I killed my enemy there.” That meant Finny was his enemy and he removed him because he got in his way. Gene is also questioned by one of his fellow classmates Brinker about the incident. Even though he does not admit it there in front of his classmates there’s evidence and witnesses like Leaper who saw gene jounce the limb. If Gene had not purposely tried to jounce the limb and break Finny’s leg in the first place then Finny wouldn’t have ended up dying.

Gene is responsible for Finny’s death because he let his feeling of anger, jealousy, and rivalry towards Finny take control of him and resulted in him jouncing the limb. This caused Finny to become guilty and admit to it several times. If Gene had not jounced the limb in the first place Finny would have never fallen off the steps which lead to his death. Gene really did kill his only enemy and for Gene at least, Devon really was where boys become men