A Separate Peace Quote Analysis

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

“I found it. I found a single sustaining thought. The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. . . . I felt better. Yes, I sensed it like the sweat of relief when nausea passes away; I felt better. We were even after all, even in enmity. The deadly rivalry was on both sides after all.”

This quote is in chapter 4. Gene is slowly starting to understand that he is jealous of Finny. Finny is a much better athlete, and can talk his way out of anything. Gene starts to develop a way of coping with this. He starts to tell himself that Finny feels the same way about him. He tells himself that Finny is jealous of Gene because he is

much smarter than Finny. Having this thought allows him to avoid feeling shame about his resentment towards Finny and forces him to make himself work harder academically to spite his friend. But this thought only lasts so long in Gene. Eventually he realizes that Finny is not at all jealous of him, and therefore he begins to feel more jealousy towards Finny.

2. “He had never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us. I was not of the same quality as he. I couldn’t stand this. . . . Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. 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. 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.”

This quote is in chapter 4 towards the climax of the story. This is when Gene shakes the tree limb and makes Finny fall. Right before, Gene’s thoughts of competition between he and Finny break down as he realizes that Finny didn't want to compete with him. Gene leaves the question of his guilt up in the air. When Gene says that Finny’s slip from the branch is “the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make” makes the fall the first sign of Finny’s mortality. Up until the fall, Finny has been known for his charm and grace, never defeated in athletics, he talks his way out of predicaments with teachers and maintains a blithe, untroubled existence, seeming to glide along in life.

3. “‘Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,’ and I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas”

This quote is from the end of chapter 6. Their conversation establishes a pattern for their post-accident relationship, in which Gene, purged of his animosity and resentment, increasingly begins to blur the line between himself and his friend. He allows Finny to live through him, becoming “a part of Phineas” by letting Finny train him to be the athlete that Finny can no longer be. But even as Finny lives through Gene, Gene is clearly living through Finny; for, as his words here suggest, to experience life through Finny is to accrue a sense of “purpose” and a sense of self, both of which Gene had previously lacked. The friends’ codependency, which develops as Finny trains Gene for his fantasy of the Olympics. The boys’ codependency fulfills needs on both sides: Finny’s need to live out his dreams of athletic glory and Gene’s desire to escape his identity. Therefore , each boy, by becoming “part” of the other, protects himself from reality.

4.

“What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me? (1.32).”

This quote shows their friendship. Gene didn’t understand why Finny talked him into things that he knew he shouldn't have done. Finny influenced Gene. This wasn't necessarily a good thing. Sometimes Finny helped Gene overcome his fears and help him become more social. But sometimes, it was a bad thing, like jumping from the tree. Much of his hesitation over jumping has less to do with a fear of dying than a fear of subordination, of blindly following Finny's desires

5. “I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky” (1.5).

This is one example of equal but opposite pairs. There are a lot of these in A Separate Peace. Such as war and peace, winter and summer, safety and injury. This shows joy and fear. He was scared but at the same time he was really happy. He was excited but at the same time he was concerned about the outlook. At the end of this quote, there is a simile comparing this feeling to the days the Northern Lights go across the black

sky.