A Separate Peace A Separate Peace is a coming of age novel in which Gene, the main character, revisits his high school and his traumatic teen years. When Gene was a teen-ager his best friend and roommate Phineas (Finny) was the star athlete of the school. Gene was only a mediocre athlete and is always jealous of Finny. They form a Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session which includes jumping from a tree into a river as its initiation. Eventually, Finny falls from the tree fracturing his leg. This leads to Finny’s death and Gene struggle to find himself. The relationship between these two boys proves my thesis statement; a friend and an enemy can be one in the same. The characters of Gene and Finny are as opposite as apples and oranges. Finny is a free spirit and Gene enjoys structure. The main problem though, is that Finny has “some kind of hold”(9) over Gene. The fact that Gene lets Finny talk him into things troubles Gene. Therefore, when they form the Suicide Society and jump out of the tree it becomes destructive for Gene because he is cutting himself off from the structure that normally runs his life. With all the time commitments to Finny and the society Gene’s grades plummet. He forms the idea that, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies.”(45). Since academics are so important to Gene he begins to resent Finny and he feels that he has to get revenge. This anger leads to Gene jouncing Finny out of the tree. The tone of this story changes frequently. Its changes are bases mostly on Genes feelings toward Finny. Gene often has feeling of resentment and uncertainty about their friendship; this creates a negative tone. Finny on the other hand seems to make the mood somewhat whimsical. For example he beets the school swimming record without ever practicing. He also sneaks away to swim and sleep by the ocean. The tone in this novel is important to the theme because Gene longs to have that same whimsical way that Finny has. However, Gene can never accomplish this and he becomes very cynical at times. Symbolism is also very important to this novel. An example of this is the war; it symbolizes several different things. Finny explains to the head master that “We’re all getting ready for the war”(15)when asked why he was late for dinner.
Friendship is a necessity throughout life whether it is during elementary school or during adulthood. Some friendships may last a while and some may last for a year; it depends on the strength of the bond and trust between the two people. In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the main characters, Gene and Finny, did not have a pure friendship because it was driven by envy and jealousy, they did not feel the same way towards each other and they did not accurately understand each other.
A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles is a flashback of the main character, Gene Forrester’s schooling at the Devon School in New England. During this flashback Gene remembers his best friend Finny, who was really athletic and outgoing. Gene and Finny’s friendship was a relationship of jealousy. Gene was jealous of Finny’s talent in athletics, and Finny was envious of Gene’s talent in school. In the end, Gene’s jealousy of Finny takes over and causes him to shake the tree branch that makes Finny fall and break his leg. The break was bad, but it was not until Finny fell down the stairs and broke his leg again, that he had to have surgery. The surgery that Finny would undergo would cause more complications and heartbreaking news for Gene. During the surgery Finny would lose his life due to some bone marrow that escaped into his blood stream and stopped his heart from beating. “As I was moving the bone some of the marrow must have escaped into his blood stream and gone directly to his heart and stopped it” (Knowles 193). Although people do not normally think about bone marrow as being a huge part of the human body, it can cause some major issues if it has to be replaced or escapes into the blood stream.
Although Gene and Finny are very different, they are also united in several ways. Both boys like to be in charge and are comfortable in leadership positions.
Gene nears completion of his transformation into Finny in chapter 4. “I jounced the limb” (923) says Gene, and Finny falls through the branches snapping the limbs with his momentum until the fall ended with an unnatural thud. This action initiates the final phase of Gene’s plan he can not completely be Finny until the space is open and until then it was filled. At this point Gene begins to realize what has been happening. At the funeral Gene said that he did not cry then or ever. Gene did not cry because he knew that when Finny was buried that was all that was buried Finny, a body.
Additionally, Gene justifies his hatred towards Finny by assuming Finny feels hatred towards him because of his excellence in academics. At this moment, Gene does not attempt to deny his shadow. Rather, he embraces his shadow completely, allowing it take him over and make false accusations against his own best friend. In Gene’s mind, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies. That explained blitz all, that explained the nightly meetings of the Super Suicide Society, that explains his insistence that I share all his diversions.
Knowles further manipulates Finny and Gene’s relationship in their escapades together. At the beach, Finny shares his inner emotions with Gene, an act likened to “the next thing to suicide” (48). Surprised, Gene attempts to share his own feelings, but hesitates and does not follow through. Knowles uses Gene’s hesitant, distrusting nature, to suggest dishonesty in his relationship with Finny. In the scene where Finny saves Gene from falling out of the tree, Knowles continues to imply power disparity. Realizing that “Finny had practically saved [his] life” (32), Gene feels personal debt to Finny. This widens the power gap even further ...
Gene jounces a limb of the tree he and Finny were standing on, causing Finny to fall and break his leg. Gene's jealousy of Finny's perfection causes him to have childish feelings of resentment and hatred. After Finny's leg was broken, Gene realized "that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between" (Knowles 51) him and Finny. Gene looked at himself and became conscious of what a terrible, self-absorbed friend he had been. Understanding there was no competition caused him to discard the majority of his feelings of jealousy. Getting rid of these feelings made him grow-up because he was no longer spending countless hours believing a childish game was being played between Finny and him. Gene began to understand more of Finny's goodness and love towards all, making him strive to be more like Finny.
In the beginning of the novel, Gene, is a clueless individual. He sees the worst in people and lets his evil side take over not only his mind but also his body. During the tree scene, Gene convinces himself that Finny isn’t his friend, tricking himself into thinking that Finny is a conniving foil that wants to sabotage his academic merit. Gene is furthermore deluded that every time Finny invites Gene somewhere it’s to keep him from studying and doing well. Finny has a reputation for being the the best athlete in school, and Gene attempts to counterbalance Finny’s power by being the best student. After a while of joining Finny’s activities, Gene thinks that Finny is intentionally trying to make him fail out of school. He starts to dislike Finny and his activities, and Gene starts interrupt...
In the early pages of the novel, Finny confesses that Gene is his best friend. This is considered a courageous act as the students at Devon rarely show any emotion. And rather than coming back with similar affection, Gene holds back and says nothing. Gene simply cannot handle the fact that Finny is so compassionate, so athletic, so ingenuitive, so perfect. As he put it, "Phineas could get away with anything." (p. 18) In order to protect himself from accepting Finny's compassion and risking emotional suffering, Gene creates a silent rivalry with Finny, and convinced himself that Finny is deliberately attempting to ruin his schoolwork. Gene decides he and Finny are jealous of each other, and reduces their friendship to cold trickery and hostility. Gene becomes disgusted with himself after weeks of the silent rivalry. He finally discovers the truth, that Finny only wants the best for Gene, and had no hidden evil intentions. This creates a conflict for Gene as he is not able to deal with Finny's purity and his own dark emotions. On this very day Finny wants to jump off of the tree branch into the Devon river at the same time as Gene, a "double jump" (p. 51), he says, as a way of bonding. It was this decision, caused by Finny's affection for Gene and outgoing ways that resulted in drastic change for the rest of his life.
One of the enemies that Gene created for himself was jealousy. Gene was jealous of everything about Finny. The openness which Finny possessed was one of these things which Gene envied. One incident of Finny’s openness was when he wore the pink shirt. By wearing this he was “symbolizing the first U.S. bombing in Europe.” Gene simply replied to the shirt by calling Finny “nuts,” but deep down inside Gene was jealous of Finny’s boldness. Another incident of Finny’s openness, or boldness is when he wore the school tie as a belt. Gene was anxiously waiting for Finny to get yelled at, but because of his openness he was able to talk his way out of getting into trouble. Finny claimed that he wore the tie as a belt because it represented “Devon in the War.” Again, Gene was envious of Finny’s openness to make up a story and “get away with everything.”
In A Separate Peace, John Knowles depicts two maturing boys, each on entirely different ends of the personality spectrum. Finny and Gene are roommates at the Devon School in New England, placed together by chance. Gene Forrester characterizes himself with intelligence and thoughtfulness while also possessing sparks of competitiveness. Phineas, better known as Finny, holds undeniable charm and strong athleticism. Their utterly different traits leave them in a position where their status as roommates is the only driving force in their friendship. Although they project different world views and demonstrate different forms of leadership if any, both of them have hidden insecurities, connecting them in ways beyond their apparent characteristics.
Gene and Phineas are not like every other teenager during this “gypsy summer” (Knowles 79). They share a bond like no other boys even though they differ in all aspects. Gene tells us in the novel that “Phineas always had a steady and formidable flow of usable energy” (Knowles 39). Finny is constantly on the move, whether it is riding bikes to the ocean, swimming, or wrestling; Finny enjoys using his athletic talents. Phineas even reveals one day to Gene, “Did I ever tell you,” he says in a husky tone, “that I used to be aiming for the Olympics?”(Knowles 117). Finny knows he is a good athlete and believes the Olympics are the best physical challenge. He is by far Devon’s best athlete (Bloom 14). Gene in comparison is not as strong as an athlete. Gene refers to himself as “a pretty good athlete” (Knowles 55). Gene does not realize what kind of athlete he really is until Phineas pushes him when Finny is no longer able. Gene has a “usual feeling of routine self-pity when working out” (Knowles 120). Phineas, however, is always ready for the next athletic challenge. He has trophies and ribbons and even broke a school record. Fin...
A Separate Peace revolves around two very different characters Gene and Phineas, and the relationship between them. Knowles uses these two contrasting characters who have very distinct personalities and morals to help understand the reality of mankind. Phineas captures the readers attention from page one. He is athletic, good-looking, clever, and everyone seems to follow his lead. Phineas seems to have a unique sense of peace with himself, and with the world around him. Everyone at Devon seemed to strive to be the best and to let everyone know it. Everyone that is, except for Phineas. One regular day during the summer session, Phineas decides to break the school swimming record when he realizes no one in his class has broken the current record. Phineas may not have been on the school swim team, but that didn’t stop him from hopping him and seeing if he could beat the record. He then breaks the record, but strangely tells Gene, “It’s just between you and me. Don’t say anything about it, to...anyone” (Knowles 45). This statement in itself seems...
Finny represented childhood. Firstly, Finny tries to enjoy life. Whenever finny faced a difficult situation he would not worry about it and instead play a game. Finny was always playing games and influenced everyone else to play games as well. When Gene returned from his visit to leper he “found him in the middle of a snow ball fight.” (p.152) Gene went on to say “This gathering had obviously been Finny’s work. Who else could have inveigled twenty people to the farthest extremity of the school to throw snowballs at each other?” (p.153) these quotes show that it was common for Phineas to gather large amounts of people and play games with them. Secondly, when Finny broke his leg Gene focused on non-childlike tasks. While visiting Finny at his house Finny asked Gene “‘you aren’t going to start living by the rules, are you?’ I grinned at him ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t do that,’ and that was the most false thing, the biggest lie of all.” (p.71). Gene started following the school rules again. Gene acted more mature and because of Finny’s absence there was no one to make him do otherwise. This shows that without Finny, Gene matures and becomes adult like. Thirdly, Finny makes Gene do actions Gene would otherwise never do. Finny once said “‘let’s go to the beach’” (p.45). and after thought of the risks like the fact that “going there risked expulsion” (p.46). Gene said “All right”(p.46). This shows that like Finny is trying to make gene have a good time while it is still possible. Finny being childhood means that he must be left behind in order for Gene to mature.
In Knowles' A Separate Peace, Gene starts with his many fears, including his insecurities which were also the root of his anger. Once he is angry, he allows that anger to grow into catastrophic levels so that he develops a huge hatred of Finny. In the end, Gene's hate leads to suffering for both Gene and Finny. Gene feels guilt for the actions he committed when he was