Gene's Identity In John Knowles A Separate Peace

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Gene suffers the crippling effects of seeking one’s identity in another while the backdrop of the war moves on around the boys at Devon. In John Knowles’ novel A Separate Peace, Knowles explores the struggle of finding one’s identity in the war-time era. The students are expected enlist in the war effort as soon as they are able to avoid the draft. The pressure of the war and Gene’s insecurity lead him down an unsavory and tragic path in the novel. Unlike his best friend Gene can never fully grasp his true nature.
Gene habitually tries to find his identity in his peers and with his imminent enlistment in the war effort, Gene struggles to grasp the person he will become in the future. Gene’s dependency on Finny reveals itself for the first time when the …show more content…

Early on in the novel Gene appears reliant on Finny’s leadership even when Gene does not want to follow his best friend. Consequently, Gene almost mindlessly follows Finny’s every action and desire. When the back of an Air Force controlled drone gets cut off “the drone is as useless as an eyeball cut off from the brain” (Bowden 5). Much of the same can be said about Gene. If he were to be cut off from Finny, Gene would lose the greatest influence and the person who made most of Gene’s decisions for him. After Phineas’ accident Gene, possibly out of extreme guilt, puts on Finny’s clothes and tries to essentially become Finny, "But when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become no character out of daydreams. I was Phineas, Phineas to the life" (Knowles 62). From the moment that Gene puts on Finny’s clothes Gene, thrives off of the thought of getting to become his best friend and greatest adversary. The moment also defines Gene for most of his time at Devon and even into his adult life. A young drone pilot refelcts that "it feels bad almost...A lot of

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