A Seperate Peace Ch.13

"You have to do what you think is the right thing, but just make sure it's the right thing in the long run, and not just for the moment" (199).

"I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there" (204).

Brinker's dad is completely right when he makes the statement about thinking something through before doing it. Some things that we do may hurt us in the long run and Gene is one good example of it. He should have realized this before causing Phineas to lose his ability to walk! If he thought before jouncing the limb, then Phineas would have been alive and ready to go to war with Gene. Gene was a complete idiot throughout most of the book, but now Gene is telling us he learned from his mistakes when he talks about killing his "enemy". I thought he was talking about Phineas at first, but then I realized he might be talking about himself. He fought and killed the boy inside of him who was jealous of his best friend, Phineas. The boy who caused Phineas pain and suffer because of his jealousy. Gene is not that boy anymore. He fought that person out of him and will fight for the right things now. Phineas was very important to Gene and I hope that Gene doesn't make the same mistake he made with Phineas to somebody else.

Will Gene ever admit to the mistakes he made without trying to avoid them?