Character Analysis: A Separate Peace By John Knowles

John Knowles, the author of the book a separate peace uses a highly descriptive paragraphs and a child narrative to give the reader the perspective of a teenage student as he explores the true meaning of friendship, the loss of innocence, self-realization. In the novel, Gene struggles with the memory of him causing his best friend Phineas to fall from a tree, ruining Phineas's athletic dream and eventually resulting in his death. Through the first person point of view, the author reveals that Gene struggles to confess to Phineas that the fall was his fault. Because Gene was afraid of Phineas’s reaction to his confession, he admitted that confessing to Phineas would have made him accept reality and prevent his death. Through this experience, Gene has realized and understood his envy and antagonistic motives, losing his innocence during the process. The childlike innocence of Gene at the beginning of the novel represents a happy and ideal life. Even though Gene has a lonely, introverted, and highly intellectual personality, he befriends his handsome, popular, self confident athlete. Instead of

Gene realizes that his goal is to obey the rules and be academically superior in order to gain approval from the authority figures, whoever is encouraging him to disobey the rules must have the desire to witness his failure. Therefore, Phineas must be the enemy. Gene hides this one-sided love-hate relationship, allowing him to be consumed with anger, hatred, and jealousy. As Phineas proved in his free, careless ways that his intention was not to harm Gene in any way, this angers Gene because Phineas’s “insult” made him felt insignificant. This angers Gene even more and eventually led to him expressing his anger unintentionally by causing Phineas’s fall. This physical and emotional release frees Gene, making him feel more