Exploring Jealousy: A Comparison of 'A Separate Peace' and 'Lord of the Flies'

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Jealously is defined as an envious condition of feeling. Most people can relate to this feeling. This is a common feeling felt by the characters in A Separate Peace by John Knowles and in Lord of the Flies by William Golding. John Knowles left home at fifteen to attend Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive boarding school. The plot and setting of A Separate Peace are largely inspired by Knowles’s experiences at Exeter. A Separate Peace is an emotional novel based on the psychological actions of Gene Forrester revealing his inner evil. In 1940, William Golding joined the Royal Navy, where he served in command of a rocket-launcher. His time spent in the navy helped change his views of war. He reflects this new knowledge of war in Lord of the …show more content…

An inner evil that the characters in these novels experience is personal war. A personal war is a fight within your mind. In A Separate Peace, Gene hates Phineas and this is ironic because Phineas and Gene are best friends. Phineas loves and doesn’t think Gene will ever hurt him but gene has always hated him. Phineas is a leader and Gene is a follower. While standing at the top of the tree Gene ponders, “ Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? was he getting some kind of hold over me” (Knowles 17). This represents the inner evil of man because Gene’s thoughts were things that he kept inside and they are killing him. His thoughts are evil, cruel, and powerful enough for him to begin hating his best friend. Another ironic situation occurs in Lord of the Flies, when the other boys kill Simon. This is ironic because Simon thought the boys were his friends. living on a island drove the boys to become vicious enough to kill an innocent person. The inner evil in man is widely expressed through this ironic scene because innocent boys become killers due to their inner evil. Also, it is ironic when Leper goes crazy. leper truly believes the propaganda of war and never imagined the outcome would be his insanity. The other boys get a note from him saying he ran away from the war and then they see him: “ I saw Leper hiding in the shrubbery next to the chapel/ he didn’t say a damn word. he looked at me like I was a gorilla or something” (Knowles 163). This situation can be evidence of the inner evil of man because the people in charge of the propaganda never warned Leper so in result he went insane. Lastly, the clash between Ralph and Jack shined light on the inner evil of man. The two boys couldn’t stand being near each other , Jack even says, ‘ You go away Ralph. You keep to your end/this is my end and my tribe. You leave me alone” ( Golding 176). The tension

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