Everyone has a specific object or place that instantly floods them with memories. Whether it's the stretch of road they crashed on or the pencil they used to pass a challenging test, these objects are everywhere. The memories they hold may be painful or joyful, a beginning or an end, but what each object or place has in common is that it has a meaning that goes beyond what meets the eye. One such symbol in John Knowles' A Separate Peace, particularly for Gene Forrester and Finny, is the tree along the bank of the Devon River. Although to most people it may seem like any other tree on the riverbank, to the schoolchildren of Devon in 1942 it symbolizes many things. The tree serves many purposes in the novel A Separate Peace, some of which symbolize friendship, fear, and youth. One of the main things that the tree in a separate piece symbolizes is the friendship and bond that is only formed through abnormal activity. Especially for Gene and Finny, this action consists of jumping into the river from the tree. From this bond the “Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session” is formed. Gene describes the formation of the company when he recalls “Stiff, I started climbing the rungs, slightly reassured by having Finny right behind me. “We will work together to solidify our partnership,” [Finny] said. “We will form a suicide society, and the requirement for membership is a leap from this tree.” “A suicidal society,” I said stiffly. "The Suicide Society of the Summer Session" (Knowles 31). The tree serves as a means to bond Gene and Finny even more than before, as explained in how they cement their partnership. Without the tree to jump from, there would never have been a society and Gene and Finny would never experience the bond created in their tree jumps. While the idea of ​​jumping from the tree bonds the two friends, the first jump indebted Gene to Finny saves Gene from falling drastically from the tree, so Gene will be forever grateful to Finny. Gene realizes this fact when he reflects that “If Finny hadn't come right behind me… if he hadn't been there… I could have fallen on the bank and broken my back! I had fallen awkwardly enough to have been killed. Finny had basically saved my life” (Knowles 32) Even though Gene isn't ecstatic, Finny even forced him onto that limb and thus doesn't give Finny much of an outward expression of gratitude, the sequence of events that created society and Finny saving Gene solidifies the special bond between the two. They are into something bigger than their feelings for each other. Although the Suicide Society is short-lived and largely unimportant, their bond becomes much stronger than that of just being friends. Gene stays by Finny's side until the end while Finny is on his deathbed for more reasons than the fact that he ultimately caused his death. He didn't stay out of pity or a sense of duty, Gene stays put even when Finny rejects him, because he loves Finny. Gene and Finny are not friends, they are brothers because a simple friendship cements and blossoms into something more through the experiences they share, many of which happen because of the tree on the bank of the Devon River. As friendships thrive through the tree, fear also has its roots in the tree and the experiences it brings with it during the summer session of 1942. Gene ultimately fears what he has become, but it all began as fear of his best friend. Gene describes his delusional anger and animosity toward Finny when he recalls, “I found a single thought that sustained me. The thought was: you and Phineas already are. You even enmity... Finny had deliberately set out to ruin my studies... this explains his insistence thatI shared all his diversions... It was all a cold deception, it was all calculated, it was all enmity" (Knowles 53). Gene accuses Finny of trying to hurt him, but the feeling comes from jealousy and a deep and hidden fear that Finny is actually much better than him. Gene has to console herself and justify her anger towards Finny in some way, and she chooses to do so in a way that frames Finny. All the pent-up disgust and anger towards Finny boils over when, jumping from new from the tree with Finny, Gene says “…my knees buckled and I jumped the branch, off balance…he fell sideways…and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud reckless confidence I moved to the branch and jumped into the river, forgetting every trace of my fear” (Knowles 59-60). Gene fears for himself and what Finny is supposedly trying to do to him, so he makes the decision to push him he alters Finny's life in a single action, but afterward he feels nothing, throwing himself into the river without any emotion. Gene lets his emotions get the better of him and control him, such as the jealousy he has always had for Finny which leads to the fear that Finny will take away the one thing Gene has the advantage in: his studies. Gene recognizes this when he finally admits, “I have never killed anyone and I have never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I even put on the uniform; I was on active duty my entire time in school; There I killed my enemy. Only Phineas was never afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone” (Knowles 204). Gene's fear of betrayal towards Finny culminates in the tree, and for this reason the tree can be seen as a means of bringing out fear of others and of his own internal thoughts and beliefs. The last thing the tree symbolizes in A Separate Peace is youth. The entire story is told as a flashback when Gene revisits Devon many years later, and many of his initial reflections begin with the tree and how it grew on the very same branches that are now dying. Gene's main reflection is described when he thinks, "This was the tree, and it seemed to me that standing there resembled those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you meet years later and find that they are not simply smaller than your growth, but who are absolutely smaller, dwarfed by age. In this double demotion the old giants became pygmies while you looked the other way” (Knowles 14). from their time in Devon. He and all his friends were just boys during their time there, and the fact that their youth is so important puts even more emphasis on the fact that they were sent off to war less than a year after the flashback that Gene is having. The decaying tree shows how something that was once an achievement to jump from is now dying, and the memories created there are fading with it. Everyone has grown so much on that tree since Finny's life which changed until Gene realized that a small part of him always despised Finny's charisma and apparent perfection. This tree holds important milestones and events in the lives of all the boys who attended Devon during the summer session of 1942. It symbolizes the war as the students prepared by jumping from it. It symbolizes tragedy, but it also symbolizes joy and freedom. The tree on the bank of the River Devon is where the Devon boys come into contact with the real world of Finny's fall and its consequences, but also with the joy found in friendship. Therefore, it also represents youth, since making mistakes,