Self-Examination A Separate Peace opens when Gene Forrester returns to the Devon School, a New England preparatory school, some fifteen years after attending that school. World War II had just begun and he remembers the Summer Suicide Society, an organization founded by his best friend, Finny, which is dedicated to initiating members by having them jump from the tree into the river. Gene and Finny always had to take the first leap from the tree. As time passes, Gene begins to resent Finny due to his athletic talent and on one occasion jerks the limb so that Finny falls. Finny's leg is shattered, preventing him from playing any sports, but Finny refuses to believe that Gene could have done it, even though Gene confesses. When Finny returns to school, he wants to turn Gene into a good athlete for the 1944 Olympics. As one of many examples of opposing elements at odds with each other, Gene tells Finny that sports aren't important because of the war, to which Finny refuses to believe. A little later, some kids from the elementary school take Gene and Finny to a large meeting room, where they want to clarify the issue of Finny's broken leg. Gene realizes that he is being put on trial, Finny refuses to answer any questions because he trusts his friend, Finny leaves the room agitated, slips on the stairs and breaks the same leg again. At the hospital, Finny has changed his attitude and asks Gene why he pushed him out of the tree. Gene says the act was a blind impulse. Later that day, Finny dies when some of Q~i~'s bone marrow enters his bloodstream. Looking back on that experience, Gene believes he was never very interested in the war because he was waging his own personal war between accepting clearly defined elementary school values ​​and Finny's laid-back values. He had killed his enemy at school. Knowles' book focuses on the adolescent period of life. Adolescence is a very confusing period of life, mainly because a person swings from wanting to be a child and being innocent to wanting to be an adult and questioning life. Knowles points out that both the worlds of adolescent and adult life share many similarities and often overlap: they are not separate entities. Even in the green and well-kept paradise of Devon School there were some areas of wild and uncontrolled nature.