2) One theme of A Separate Peace is denial. Denial is evident in both the lives of Gene and Finny. Gene denies that he hurt Finny even though he …show more content…
The war has affected many people in the book, one being Leper, a student and friend of Genes at Devon. The war causes Leper to come home traumatized, causing everyone to believe he has gone crazy. An example of this is shown on page 172 when Gene says, "I kept quiet. To myself, however, I made a number of swift, automatic calculations: that Leper was no threat, no one would ever believe Leper; Leper was deranged, he was not of sound mind and if people couldn't make out their own wills when not in sound mind certainly they couldn't restify in something like this." Gene believes that Leper is so crazy that he will either not tell Brinker the truth about Finny's fall, or no one will believe