In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the events are primarily driven by the characters. The book starts off with just a simple friendship. Gene and Phineas are best friends, and they have lots of adventures together. However, Gene mistrusts Phineas for some reason. He decides that Phineas must be trying to sabotage his academic career with all the ventures they take, and vows to himself to be better at school than Phineas is at sports. Gene resents Phineas, his own “best friend,” and pushes him out of a tree. Without Gene’s misplaced hatred, the main conflicts of the story would not have happened. Other characters drive the plot further as well by trying to uncover what really happened when Phineas broke his leg. The choices the characters
