The tree represented the war for Gene and Finny, and also was the cause of their first real conflict. They saw all the seniors going off to war and they thought of the war as something dangerous. They also saw jumping from the tree as something dangerous. "Finny knew, if he stopped to think, that jumping out of the tree was even more forbidden than missing a meal. 'We had to do it naturally,' he went on, 'because we're all getting ready for the war.'" (Knowles 15)

Then Finny came up with the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session where he and Gene had to jump from the tree every night. Gene was always the academically inclines of the two friends and it never oc

curred to him that he could do anything so perilous. In Gene's own way he was fighting his own war because he had to build up all his courage in order to jump from the tree. If Gene had not jumped then he would be inferior to Finny.

Finny ran out of the room when an argument about the incident at the tree came up because he did not want to hear the truth about what really happened. He fell down a flight of stairs and later died. Gene never wanted Finny to die but always felt conflicted over what happened. War betwen friends and war between enemies is never safe and someone always ends up getting hurt, and in this case it was Finny.

All the major conflicts between Gene and Finny usually involved life or death just like war. For example, when Gene was about to jump from the tree but was distracted by Finny and almost fell; Finny grabbed his hand and helped him regain his balance. Gene's anger could be sensed when he made this comment, "Yes, he had practically saved my life. He had also practically lost it for me. I wouldn't have been on that damn limb if it wasn't for him. I wouldn't have truned around and so lost my balance, if he hadn't been there. I didn't need to feel any tremendous rush of gratitude towards Finny." (Knowles 25) If Gene had fallen out of that tree he could have died.

They sat down to have a nice conversation and ended up fighting the hwole way through. "You always were a savage underneath, like that time you pushed Finny out of the tree. Like that time you crippled him for life!" (Knowles 137) Gene had felt bead enough about the incident already; he did not need to hear it from Leper even though he knew it was the truth. So Gene jumped out of his chair and yelled, "You stupid, crazy bastard-." (Knowles 137) Then Gene kicked out the chair from under Leper. Leper just lied there on the floor laughing and crying at the same time. Gene got mad because Leper was the only one who knew the whole truth about what rea

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1338
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)