We all must endure the long and painful process of maturation. The book A Separate Peace by John Knowles expresses this delicate process very well. All the characters must go through maturation and adapt to the world, and there friends. One character in particular must go through this process and find himself while doing so. This character, Gene Forrester, a 16 year old boy going to Devon High school matures in many unique ways over the course of this novel. He matures mentally, physically, and emotionally. Starting off Gene matures mentally, he goes from ignorance to understanding. In the first half of the novel Gene doesn’t understand how he feels about his relationship between himself and Finny. Gene keeps contemplating on whether he likes Finny, or is jealous of him because he is good at everything and can talk himself out of anything. Gene says “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying…show more content… At first he has all this enmity and jealousy stored inside of him, but by the end he is filled with peace. This transformation and maturation happens because at the end he has nothing to be jealous or angry about. All his anger and jealousy dies with Finny so he is filled with peace. Gene says “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. Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone” (204). He also goes from being alone to Phineas-filled. When Finny is there he just follows him around and does whatever he does. But once Finny dies he feels alone, like everything is a blur, like time stands still. Adding on to being alone, Gene is also sad. He feels sad because Finny is gone, and Finny has been there for him his whole life. But he overcomes his sadness and accepts what has just