In the novel, A Separate Peace written by John Knowles, the hero, Gene Forrester experiences the battle to accomplish and keep up a different peace. His character throughout the book slowly turns into envy, dread, love, and disrespect for his so called best friend compete for control over his life. Along with his immaturity, it is the sense of human instinct that help Gene to understand that his real enemy was not his best friend Phineas, but himself and human nature. It helped him understand that internal affairs were not caused by outer sources, but rather "by something insensible in the human heart" (193). Teenage friendships are the most complex friendships because of the suppressed feelings of contempt one person may feel about another. …show more content…
Finny and Gene begin their summer of 1942 thinking that they have a great friendship. Genes paranoia and envy disrupt the relationship between him and Finny. As their friendship disintegrates, Finny and Gene deny that the problems in their alliance even exist, which leads to a catastrophe. The novel's contention comes from Gene's denial of him actually needing a "genuine adversary" or Phineas, who also has his own demons to battle. With Finny as an enemy, Gene is acting as if rivalry and disdain are the only things keeping him and Phineas in each others lives. This has made me and surely the characters in the book wonder, are Gene and Phineas even really friends? I am sure that this was constantly running through Genes mind annihilating any sentiments of fondness and friendship that he may have once had for Finny. After understanding his rage and finding that Phineas does not share his envy and contempt, Gene became distant and started to develop self-hatred as he purposefully takes out the one person who needs to be his friend.
Phineas represents the peace that is lost as Gene grows more and more anxious, making it nearly impossible to get rid of the enemy inside of himself. Gene and Finny enter their summer with the idea that their friendship is flawless. At the beginning of the story, Gene seems to accept Finny’s superior athletic ability, but he hated the fact that he feels like Finny is flaunting his abilities. Finny saves Gene when he grabs Genes hand to keep him from falling when he loses his balance in the tree. Gene feels that he should not feel inclined to show gratitude toward Phineas, because he does not like feeling clumsier or lesser than Finny. Instead, he blames his misfortune in the tree on Phineas. Finny is also the leader of the duo in their friendship. The balance of the friendship is maintained when Phineas thinks of something to do, and Gene goes along with it. The problem with this is that Gene only follows Finny so that he would not lose the friendship. Gene never speaks up when he has a problem, which shows a clear lack of communication. Another large factor that destroys the bond between them is Genes jealousy. Gene is extremely jealous of Finny’s athletic abilitty and social power. Finny has the ability to talk his way out of any tough situation. Gene observes
how likeable Finny is and how he can manipulate almost anyone and that makes him feel unworthy. The chaos in Gene and Finny’s relationship eventually creates a full-scale internal war. They both come to realize that there is a huge problem between each other, but neither of them is willing to admit it. They allow their friendship to continue, and their conflicts are suppressed and forgotten. Soon, Gene is put on trial to testify for Phineas’ injuries by Brinker and his colleagues. When the truth is finally revealed, Finny runs out of the room crying, and falls down the stairs once again destroying his leg along with their friendship. This whole incident releases all of this pain and resentment from both Gene and Phineas. But when Phineas dies, Gene acts like he doesn’t care when he actually feels like he is dying inside. He feels like he is attending not only Phineas’ but his own funeral also. Gene single handedly destroys a great bond and kills the man who, just a couple months earlier, saved him from his own potential death. In conclusion, the evil in both Gene and Finny are exposed and the only lasting bond that ties the two together are the memories of the shattered relationship that should have never been started in the first place. Are Gene and Phineas really friends?
First, I believe that Gene and Finny were not sincerely friends throughout the novel due to their relationship being driven by competitiveness. Along with the competitive atmosphere came jealously, envy and enmity. Gene created a rivalry between him and Finny. Since Finny was
Summer was already ending and Gene gives one last description by saying, “From behind us the last long rays of light played across the campus, accenting every slight undulation of the land, emphasizing the separateness of each bush” (59). The simpleness of summer is about to abruptly end. Yet, summer and childhood must come to an end as some point. For Gene, it all ends when Phineas falls as described on page 60, “Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud.” All playfulness is lost when Finny’s body connects with the dirt beneath him; what follows is the cold onslaught of the winter session or adulthood. Gene, in order to make this transition must cope with the intense, disatisfying feelings of guilt for he was the one who set his friend off balance. Finny, the core of carefree behavior and summer, was put out, emphasizing the end of the session. As the winter session starts up the teachers were unhappy that Phineas was
Gene believes that people are deliberately out to get him and concentrates only on grasping the evil within his friends. Therefore, Gene decides to defeat his enemies before he gets defeated himself. During the summer session at Devon, Gene encounters a dark suspicion that his friend Finny is drawing him away from his studies in order to make him fail. This makes sense to Gene since he religiously follows the rules to win approval from the staff at Devon, and anyone who persuades him to disobey these rules wishes failure upon him. Therefore, Finny
Gene begins to realize Finny is not above him, and rather thinks to himself, “You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. You did hate him for breaking that school swimming record but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course. . . .
It brings up several valid points and presents new ways of thinking that the reader may not recognize until digging deeper into A Separate Piece. Chapter 7: After the Fall gives the reader a more knowledgeable perspective on the novel and its characters, especially Gene and Finny and the relationship that the two have. Without viewing this literary analysis, a student wishing to write a paper on A Separate Peace would have great difficulty suggesting and supporting ideas involving Gene and Finny’s
Before Gene and Finny went to perform a double jump off the tree, Gene again starts contemplating ways that Finny is jealous of him. Gene states, “The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. You did hate him for breaking that school swimming record, but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term. You would have had an A in that one except for him. Except for him” (Knowles 53) . Gene knew that he had an immense amount of jealousy towards Finny, so instead of trying to remove it, he comes up with a plethora of ideas to try and justify it. Gene thinks of these ideas right before he jounces the tree limb. Gene narrates, “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb(Knowles, 60). Gene’s differing feelings are expressed in a small gesture which demolishes Finny’s life. Seeing Finny fail briefly relieved Gene’s anger and jealousy. Gene says, “It was the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make. With unthinking sureness I moved out on the limb and jumped into the river, every trace of my fear of this forgotten” (Knowles, 60). This is the first time that Gene jumps off the tree with complete confidence. The failure of his lethal rival allows Gene to behave as Finny, and ultimately become
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...
Throughout the novel, A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles conveys many messages of symbolism. The symbolism can be found in an array of ways, ranging from internal war, to the theme of human aggression, and a variety of religious principles. The main characters, Gene and Phineas, and their story could be paralleled to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. The similarities can be seen in the way in which in both of the stories, everyone is living in perfect harmony and peace until something comes along to disrupt it. Also in how the main characters do something out of jealousy, greed, and selfishness; and in addition, how Finny's fall out of a tree relates to the “Fall of Mankind.”
In conclusion Gene and Finny aren’t friends. True friends do not envy each other, or wage war with each other. True friends would stick with each other to the end, they do not envy, and most importantly they do not intentionally harm each other. Gene and Finny’s relationship is a perfect example of how envy and jealousy can corrupt the minds of everyday people. Just like what Oliver Stone said “ you should never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy” because in the end it is Genes envy that took Finny’s life, and it is Genes consequence to bear that burden of death he brought upon himself
feels that he has to get revenge. This anger leads to Gene jouncing Finny out of the tree.
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.
Throughout the novel Gene loses his innocence and matures under the influence of Finny. Gene gradually lets go of his childish jealousy over Finny, who he believes is superior to him and feels hatred towards. He however comes to realize what Finny’s friendship holds for him and recognizes his need to be a part of Finny. Gene first gains confidence in himself and starts maturing when he refuses to lie about his rich heritage...
In John Knowle’s A Separate Peace, symbols are used to develop and advance the themes of the novel. One theme is the lack of an awareness of the real world among the students who attend the Devon Academy. The war is a symbol of the "real world", from which the boys exclude themselves. It is as if the boys are in their own little world or bubble secluded from the outside world and everyone else. Along with their friends, Gene and Finny play games and joke about the war instead of taking it seriously and preparing for it. Finny organizes the Winter Carnival, invents the game of Blitz Ball, and encourages his friends to have a snowball fight. When Gene looks back on that day of the Winter Carnival, he says, "---it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace" (Knowles, 832). As he watches the snowball fight, Gene thinks to himself, "There they all were now, the cream of the school, the lights and leaders of the senior class, with their high IQs and expensive shoes, as Brinker had said, pasting each other with snowballs"(843).
Carl Jung was a disciple of Sigmund Freud, despite the two having conflicting ideas. One of Jung’s most well known and accepted theories was the existence of different types of archetypes in the brain. These include the ego, which is where our conscious awareness and sense of identity reside, and the shadow, which is the part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the protagonist Gene exemplifies the shadow, while his friend, Finny, personifies the ego. The author narrates through the shadow, though he clearly supports the ego. However, he also makes it apparent that it is wrong to be dominated by either archetype.