Throughout A separate Peace the author develops the characters along with the plot. A Separate Peace takes place during World War II in a boarding school called Devon. The plot develops as two best friends, and troublemakers, explore the trials of jealousy, friendship, and boyhood. Phineas, Gene, and Elwin ‘Leper’ Lepellier are all characterized through the events of this novel through their actions, thoughts, and reputation.
In A Separate Peace, Finny is always coming up with new ways to discard the rules and amuse Gene and his classmates. Gene and Finny are walking back from their tree when Finny decides to skip supper. With a little convincing (or a wrestling match) Gene agrees. This action demonstrates Finny’s blatant disregard for the
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rules and his trait for being a troublemaker. In addition to being a troublemaker, Finny never stops talking. One afternoon the substitute headmaster invited the Upper Middler class over for tea. The story states,” He alone talked easily. He discussed the bombing of central Europe. No one else happened to have seen the story, so the discussion was mostly one-sided.” Lastly, Finny is spontaneous. Out of the blue he decided he wanted to go to the beach, and he manages to drag Gene along with him. Therefore, the author uses speech, action, and the author’s voice to show that Finny is a troublemaker, unreserved, and spontaneous. The narrator in this novel is Gene, so we know exactly what he is thinking and feeling.
The author develops his character to show that he is passive and resentful, but also honest. Finny is able to coax Gene into assenting to his plans whether Gene wants to or not, but Gene never remonstrates. He doesn’t want to cause trouble, but he doesn’t want to speak up and refuse either. As Finny continues to talk his way out of trouble and excel at sports such as blitzkrieg ball, Gene starts to show readers that he resents Finny for being so adept at everything. The story states,” Finny could shine with everything, he attracted everyone he met.” However, even when Gene is becoming more envious of Finny he still considers him his best friend. Gene believes he pushed Finny off the branch, even though we do not know for sure. To try to make this action right and do what a best friend would, he goes to Finny’s house to confess. It may hurt their relationship, but Finny wants to be honest and try to rid himself of the …show more content…
guilt. Gene and Finny are the main characters in this novel, however, occasionally minor characters such as Elwin “Leper” Lepellier come in to add to the plot.
Leper is introduced when Gene and Finny first jump from their tree. Leper boldly announces that he believes that Gene’s jump was better. Through this action and the way he backs away when he is dared to jump himself shows that he is all talk and no action. Later in the novel Gene is studying when Finny comes in with the news that Leper intends to leap tonight. Gene thinks,” I didn’t believe it for a second. Leper Lepellier would go down paralyzed with panic.” Gene’s thoughts indicated that Leper is a scared person. Leper is also absentminded. He goes off to his own world incessantly. For example, when Leper talks he doesn’t describe his thoughts fully and he also doesn’t pay attention. “But not Leper. He generally made little sketches of birds during chapel, so he had probably not heard this
announcement.” The characters in A Separate Peace are very realistic. It is easy to picture a real person being passive or a trouble maker or scared. The themes of friendship and the trials of boyhood are also relevant. This novel develops characters thoroughly, and uses their actions, dialogue, and author’s voice to spin a haunting story about adolescence.
In the story, Finny created a counterpart between his athleticism and Gene’s academic abilities. Since sports came easy to Finny, he assumed that Gene was naturally intelligent and smart. Finny eventually figured out that this was not true and that his assumptions were incorrect; “‘Oh for God sake! You don’t know what I’m talking about. No, of course not. Not you…’ ‘I didn’t know you needed to study,’ he said simply, ‘I didn’t think you ever did. I thought it just came to you.’ It seemed that he had made some kind of parallel between my studies and his sports. He probably thought anything you were good at came without effort” (Knowles 57-58). Finny was unable to comprehend that some skills do not come naturally to people. Devoted friendships are a result of having an appreciation for each other. Finny and Gene did not have this nor did they truly know each other very well. A lack of understanding between the two of them provoked various disputes throughout the novel. If Gene and Finny were truly friends, misunderstandings would not have occurred since they would have acknowledged their
John Knowles writes a compelling realistic fiction about the lives of two teenage boys throughout the start of World War II in his novel A Separate Peace. Peter Yates the director of the movie plays the story out in a well organized theatrical manner. There are similarities and differences in these two works of art. However; there are also similarities.
Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affects him on a personal level throughout the novel.
He becomes aware of Finny’s endurance, as “nothing as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last [Gene] had” (203). Following Finny’s death, Gene states how absolutely nothing could break Finny, not even a war. But the evilness of his shadow and unconscious self could, and cause Finny’s death. One’s shadow can be toxic when displayed to the outside world, especially when it is not in check by the individual. Gene has accepted his dark side when he admits he had been the cause of his friend’s death. In the very end of the novel, Gene finally takes responsibility for all of his shadow’s actions against his best friend, as he thinks to himself, “I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there” (204). Gene’s transformation from the beginning of the novel to the end is clearly seen in this quotation, as he no longer denies his shadow’s existence and now claims responsibility of the darkness inside himself. He illustrates himself as being on active duty at all times at school, staying on guard for any of Finny’s tricks that may potentially cause him to fall behind in his studies. His war with Finny, whom he once
Chapter 7: After the Fall also claims that Gene “wants to become what Finny was as a means to escape from himself”, however, the novel presents evidence that Finny was the one who tried to become Gene. The literary analysis claims Gene’s signing up for extracurricular activities and his wearing of Finny’s shirt suggest that Gene is
Gene sets himself up to become the inferior in his relationship with Finny because of his distrusting nature, but his yielding to Finny’s power motivates him to no longer be the lackey but rather the leader. In Gene’s quest for dominance, his initial steps are passive; he seeks to portray Finny as an antagonist and look better in comparison. Gene’s plan escalates as he takes away power from Finny physically. This proceeds into an obsession with him, convincing Gene that the only way to gain power is to become Finny. Knowles uses Gene’s escalation of his plot for power to warn readers to be wary of those seeking power. Through Gene, he advises the reader that individuals who seek power will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.
In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the narrator, Gene Forrester struggles to earn and preserve a separate peace. The story takes place in a remote boarding school named Devon, in New Hampshire. While Gene and Finny are in school, World War II is taking place. The author clearly explains an important story about the jealousy between Gene and his best friend, Phineas. Gene suspects that Finny is trying to sabotage his grades, and Gene allows his jealousy to control his actions. Therefore, Gene misinterprets their relationship by thinking that they shared enmity towards each other, and this caused Gene to enter a world of jealousy and hatred, which ultimately leads to Finny’s death. By examining this jealousy, John Knowles
While Finny was known for the amazing feat of keeping his kindhearted nature throughout the story even during the stressful times of the war, which most could not do. But Leper did not. Elwin was a mild and quiet loner of a young boy, who loved snails and mystical things of nature. He was also the poster child for the carefree boys who had not yet been affected by the impending war. He was a comfort to Gene of things that would never change. Gene avoided going to Leper's old room (Brinker's new room) for the reasoning that he didn't want to see the gypsy summer truly come to an end. Leper's character development began to ascend in its climax when Leper became the first to enroll in the army. Him doing so reminded every one of their similar fate and if they would enroll as well. Also, the fact that Leper "escaped" from the military due to mental instability didn't help either. When Gene meet Leper at his home in Vermont there was a clear personality change as "He shrugged, a look of disgust with my question crossing his face. The careful politeness he had always had was gone,". (Knowles 144) Instead of kind and mild he is now aggressive and has continuing mood swings. Elwin is a completely different person and when he begins to explain his gruesome hallucinations of brooms turning into human legs and men turning into women, Gene realizes the toll the war has taken on
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...
A Separate Peace shares the lives of students at Devon that are forced into an unknown world of fear, problems, and uncertainty as they head off to World War II in training to fight and represent their country where they will find or lose themselves and make important decisions that will impact their future. The students at Devon are put into adulthood at an early age, having to fight and make their country proud, but they are left feeling pressure for a war they do not start. The students enter a world of unexpectedness and dread where they are forced into adulthood through war, and are exposed to self sacrifice, physical awareness, and patriotism.
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...
"A Separate Peace." Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Vol. 3. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1993.
In the novel, Gene fights a competitive war through ignorance and his mind’s creation, changing his endeavors and goals. Gene narrates this notion of mutual competition with Finny as when he is “more and more certainly becoming the best student in the school; Phineas was without question the best athlete, so in that way we were even. But while he was a very poor student I was a pretty good athlete, and when everything was thrown into the scales they would in the end tilt definitely toward me. The new attacks of studying were his emergency measures to save himself. I redoubled my effort” (Knowles 55). Here G...