Friendship in A Separate Peace

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Friendship in A Separate Peace A Separate Peace is a story about two youths, Gene and Phineas, growing up at a beautiful boys’ boarding school in New England. Set at the background of the World War II, the friendship between them grows as the peace in Devon School diminishes. Gene and Phineas are like two poles of a magnet, opposite yet bound together. Gene is academic, Finny is athletic; Gene is hard worker, Finny is not; Finny is the extroverted leader and Gene is his follower. Gene follows the rules, and Finny breaks them. Their personalities and strengths are different and yet they are inseparable. “"It’s you pal," he said, "just you and me." He and I started back across the fields, preceding the others like two seigneurs. We were the best of friends at that moment"” (17). Gene becomes Finny’s best friend the moment he jumps out of the tree and crashed into Devon River as a result of Finny’s goading. Since then, Finny is the dominant factor in all the choices the Gene makes: “When I got myself into position to jump…I always jumped. Otherwise I would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable” (34). When Gene jumps, in a way he is throwing his life away to Finny, because from that point forward, Finny will be the overwhelming influence of his life. At the early stage of their friendship, Gene always feels that Finny is such a great person: "He got away with everything because of the extraordinary person he was. It was quite a compliment to me, in fact, to have such a person choose me for his best friend" (29). But somehow, Gene doubts Finny’s loyalty. As an adolescent, Gene’s in... ... middle of paper ... ...ith his leg bound and hindering, he snaps fiercely at Gene, "You want to break something else in me! Is that why you’re here!" (184). But being the extraordinary friend that he is, Finny readily forgives Gene. "I believe you. You’ve already shown me and I believe you" (191). The most important aspect of Gene and Finny’s friendship is that each was so much a part of the other. To Finny, Gene has always been an extension of himself. Perhaps that’s why it is so easy for him to forgive Gene. Gene realizes that the whole purpose of their friendship is for him the become part of Finny: “"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” (85).

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