LEPERLeper Lepellier is a classmate of Gene and Finny. He is a mild, gentle boy from Vermont who adores nature and engages in peaceful, outdoor-oriented hobbies, like cross-country skiing. He is not popular at Devon but seems to pay no attention to such things; only later does the text hint at his desire to be closer to Gene and his jealousy of Finny's position as Gene's best friend. He is the first boy from Gene's class to enlist in the army, but military life proves too much for him, and he suffers hallucinations and a breakdown.
Leper is the dreamy, eccentric, unathletic loner at Devon. Rather than prepare for or become involved with the war, Leper would rather collect snails or search for beaver dams. Leper's role increases in significance when, to everyone's surprise, he decides to enlist, making the war seem even more unreal for Gene. But Leper's quiet and quirky personality prove to be completely incompatible with army life, and he escapes from his training camp. The post-army Leper is no longer his calm, dreamy self, but rather an emotionally volatile, terrified young man. His involvement in the army has forced him to emerge from what Gene dubs his "protective cloud of vagueness" and he meets "the horror, face to face, just as he had always feared" (Knowles 196).
If I had to pick something that would most symbolize Leper is would most likely be a turtle. Like a turtle, Leper liked to stay to himself and not really get involved with other people, just like how turtles like to stay inside their shells. Leper came out of his shell when he unexpectedly signed up to join the army.
CHET
Chet Douglass is a strong student who remains on the periphery of the novel's action. He is Gene's competition in the classroom and his real desire to learn and his fascination with what he studies contrasts Gene's competitive disinterest in any subject. Gene writes of him: "He got carried away by things; for example, he was so fascinated by the tilting planes of solid geometry that he did almost as badly in trigonometry as I did myself" (Knowles 46). Chet is also extremely talented at tennis and trumpet playing, but, according to Gene: "he had an underlying obliging and considerate strain which barred him from being a really important member of the class" (Knowles 124).
Chet Douglas is an exaggerated prep, just like Phineas is an exaggerated jock. He is obsessed with learning just for the sake of learning. No real hardcore prep thinks that way! Chet Douglas lives in his own educational world. He's so absorbed in this alternate reality in which Calculus has a justified existence that he forgets what the school is trying to teach him, and actually goes out and seeks more academia than what the school is already shoving down his and everyone else's throat. The standard prep is only concerned with being on the top of the Honor Roll, so that everybody's parents can marvel at how smart he is.
I think that Chet is best symbolized by a bee. He is all about hard word and does not seem to do anything else. Unlike a bee though he only seems to think about himself and not about the other people or "hive".
