A Separate Peace by John Knowles

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Recommended: Theme of jealousy in a separate peace

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

In John Knowles novel, A Separate Peace, Gene is plagued by jealousy for his best friend, Finny. As this novel continues, Gene ends up hurting his friend because of his jealousy. After Gene blindly intentionally hurts his only friend, he has a guilty conscience and has to overcome it by being good friends with Finny. However, Gene still feels guilty for Finny, has lost his best friend, and he knows his life will never be the same.

Gene still feels guilty for Finny. It is extremely hard for Gene to overcome this guilt. He feels this after he pushes Finny out of the tree. When Gene, Finny, and others go to the tree to either watch or jump out of the tree, Gene does something terrible to Finny that will change his life. As Finny and Gene stand on a branch high up on the tree, Gene shakes the branch. As an end result, Finny falls out of the tree paralyzing himself for the rest of his life. After, Gene feels so guilty until Finny passes away. Everyone is convinced that gene pushed Finny out of the tree. Yet, Finny covers up and tell everyone, including himself, that is was an accident and no one really knows how he fell out. Although Gene tell Finny that he pushed him out of "blind impulse", Finny thinks that gene is too good of a friend which leads Finny for feeling guilty for Finny.

By Gene pushing Finny out of the tree he not only has guilt, he starts to lose his best friend. Things were never the same between Gene and Finny. Before Finny dies, he questions Gene why he would push him out. Gene tells him how sorry he is. Finny says that he knows it was an accident. That day Finny died. Gene looses his best friend to jealousy. He never would have hurt if he was jealous. Gene lost his only true friend because of his hatred towards him.

Gene life will never be the same again. From the moment Finny fell out of the tree, Gene's life changed completely. Gene becomes very honest. He tells Finny what happened and says that he doesn't want to lie anymore. When Finny dies, Gene changes tremendously.

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