This shows Leper at first wanted to be in the army and succeeded in making a name for himself, but the army drove him to insanity. Leper began to hallucinate and had trouble focusing on everything. The status he believed he belonged in ended up being a terrible mistake. His identity again changes and he is known by the school boys as crazy. He was also about to get a section eight discharge or screwed for life as Leper calls it.

Even though it wasn't Finny's intention, Gene starts assuming all these awful things about Phineas, thinking he is out to get him and that they are in competition. He starts getting insecure and jealous enough to accuse his best friend of such things. Finny though, sees Gene as his best friend and doesn't believe it when he tells him he did something bad to him. Gene listens to any idea Finny suggests like going to a far away beach or jumping out of a tree into water. They are both very close and are a part of each other, but Gene starts to become envious.

This further proves the idea that Finny and Gene need and are a part of one another. They have a really deep bond and would do a lot for each other. The author even emphasizes the conclusion that they need the other by Gene repeating it twice. Though they may go through many fights and obstacles, they truly care on the inside. After Finny seemed like he wanted him to stay, Gene started to lose interest and struggled to find the meaning of war for himself.

Leper becomes famous and talked about among almost all of the boys in school. Leper thought that he belonged in the war, and he said that he was almost glad it came along. His identity changes from an unknown cowardly schoolboy to widely known. He was really passionate about it and wanted to be one of the ski troopers. When he left, he said something about how everything has to evolve or else it perishes.

After Gene gets the luxury of having a maid taken away, he stays grateful for what he has, and he didn't complain about it, even if his best friend Phineas did. Normal teenagers would feel a bit upset, but Gene seems to have matured. He even says how it's not much of a sacrifice especially when many others have it worse, which is very true. He doesn't seem as immature as he did in the beginning of the book and reads could assume that the war has changed his mind about things. Making Gene less innocent and more grown.

Gene sees the world now as a dark, empty, place without hope. He uses a variety of figurative language to represent how he starts to view things. Gene believes the late winter is depressing and doesn't understand why Finny doesn't think the same. He states that Finny sees all weather as simply delightful. This shows that how you perceive things depends on your mindset. If it was stated in the book that Phineas has more of an innocent, optimistic way of life, then Gene on the other hand would definitely have a bit more pessimistic, less innocent, way of thinking, but would have more logic in his beliefs. He also uses personification to emphasize the idea that winter is gloomy and hollow.

Even in the first few chapters of the book Gene shows awareness of what is available and things that are not. He has a bit of a depressing view on life and is bold enough to make the claim that luxuries and pleasures in the world will always be temporary and in small amounts. Later on in the book Phineas makes a claim that the fat rich men take and enjoy the good things in the world, while the lesser people get little or none. This represents a social conflict between a class of people in higher positions versus a class of people in lower positions. When the lower do more, they obtain less, the higher do less, yet the higher get to have more.

There is a comparison between the laborers and the young troops. The young men seem happy, honorable, and they also give off the impression that they are important, while the laborers seem worn out and like they are nobodies. Gene even calls the other and himself a part of the drab ranks. Readers could also assume that the laborers feel kinda lowly and useful from Gene saying that they looked at each other rather emptily. It's clear there is a social conflict between these two classes, one seen as more important, higher, and clean, the other not as useful, lower and dirty.

Gene emphasizes the importance of the age of sixteen by telling the viewers how people see you and what you will end up doing. Sixteen is viewed as the age where you mature and finally become a full man or woman. You reach a year of great importance, so older people are sometimes delighted or a little afraid of you too, as stated in this page. They feel this way because they imagine you are batting for the country and the people in it. Sixteen is the coming of age when you change, mature, and shape yourself into who you truly want to become.

This huge event sets off all the other events in the book. Gene makes the limb of the tree bounce, causing Finny to lose his balance, fall, and break his leg. This one action set off a chain of things and was the whole reason for Finny's death and so much more. One other thing it helped develop and change was Gene's mindset. Gene ages, not physically, but mentally. Gene after this and some other events realizes his faults and becomes a bit more disciplined and thoughtful. And after Finny's death, he ends up being even more matured and different from the beginning of the book.

This was Gene's not physical, but mental coming of age, changing his thoughts, motivation, and maturity.

Novel:

"Why do you think I kept saying there wasn’t any war all winter? I was going to keep on saying it until two seconds after I got a letter from Ottawa or Chungking or some place saying, ‘Yes you can enlist with us" (Knowles 190).

Article: "...Finny is a sensitive person, and he does everything he can to hide things from himself, so he doesn’t end up getting hurt. One of these things is the war. WWII is the center of everyone’s life at the time, yet Finny is desperate to find a way to avoid uncovering the truth about it."

Novel: "I found it. I found a single sustaining thought. The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. You did hate him for breaking that school swimming record, but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term" (Knowles 53).

Article: "At one point in the novel, Forrester entertains the absurd idea that Finny is deliberately trying to destroy his scholastic success (even though Finny is obviously unconcerned). Forrester’s personal insecurity is such that it drives him toward somehow getting even with Finny, which he eventually does by causing Finny’s fall from the tree."

Novel: "He needed me. I was the least trustworthy person he had ever met. I knew that; he knew or should know that too. I had even told him. I had told him. But there was mistaking the shield of remoteness in his face and voice. He wanted me around" (Knowles 108).

Article: "The foremost of these themes is codependency, as Finny and Gene’s relationship shifts into codependency after the accident. Gene relies on Finny as emotional support for the guilt he feels over the accident, and Finny relies on Gene for academic help (as Gene is a much better student) and lives vicariously through Gene in athletics since he is no longer able to compete. Their identities become so entangled that Gene describes attending Finny’s funeral as akin to attending his own."