Jealousy In John Knowles A Separate Peace

A Separate Peace Relation

The enemy shall be thy one who is full of envy and imitation. John Knowles progressed a novel, A Separate Peace, with the focus around two young boys enrolled in a boarding school in the 1940’s. Gene is to be described as non-athletic, often wreck less, academically successful, and self-centered. A Separate Peace provides the integrity of how Gene’s envy and imitation of Phineas affects the relationship between himself, Phineas, how Gene found peace upon returning to Devon 15 years later.

Gene’s envy and imitation of Phineas affects him. His jealousy affected him by changing his actions and tone. The author remarks, “Initially, Gene imitates Phineas; he joins him climbing the tree and jumps into the river, being late for dinner, and taking forbidden trips to the beach” (Alton). Gene was convinced by Finny to climb the tree to jump; he started to follow Phineas to give himself confidence, changing his innocence then. Gene tries on Phineas’ clothes to become more like Phineas momentarily. In the novel, Gene states that “I would never stumble through the confusion of my own character again” (Knowles 54). Gene is wanting to become someone else in order to achieve like Finny. He becomes confident in the way of dressing like

him and obsessing. Not only did it affect himself, but it also affected the friendship between him and Phineas.

Gene’s innocence in the beginning of the book had impulse into a pathway on adulthood causing Gene’s tone to change. Their friendship had been affected because Gene started to doubt Finny’s acts. The novel stated “Then a second realization broke as clearly and bleakly as down at the beach. Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies” (Knowles 28). He began to rethink Finny’s friendliness due to that he is only needy to hurt Gene’s academics. Gene began to follow to act bold towards Finny after making the discovery of Finny not being a real friend. Soon or later, Gene began to follow Phineas without notice to be careless and childish. Author states, “I went along, I never missed a meaning. At the time it would never have occurred to me so say I don’t feel like it tonight, which was the plain truth, every night” (Knowles 34). Gene without hesitation, stops caring about Finny’s way and gets amuned by showing his emotion. He doesn’t find the reason to bicker with Phineas over one after the other. In the end, peace was founded by the return to Devon 15 years later.
In the book, Gene develops a peaceful atmosphere momentarily after Finny’s death.

At the end, Gene soon realizes that he was the enemy all along. A Separate Peace states that “To keep silent about this amazing happening deepened this shock for me. It made Finny seem too unusual for—not friendship, but too unusual for rivalry. And there were few relationships among us at Devon not based on rivalry” (Knowles 63). Gene then knows that he is the enemy and impulse toward destruction – and believes he overcame the enemy after causing Phineas’ death. He separates from Phineas and develops his own identity and adulthood. Knowles states “I could not escape that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case”

(116).

After Finny’s death, he finds a new peace in himself, enabling him to cope with miner troubles, Brinker’s father, and great challenges like servicing in the war. By the end of the novel, he has fulfilled the earlier promise of the image in the mirror. Peace within is achieved only after fighting one’s own war.
As one can see, Gene had channeled through his identities with the relation with Phineas, himself, and the peace found. The importance in A Separate Peace is to be yourself independently. Don’t act upon others action and being true to yourself can change your whole perspective. The process is on- going acknowledgement that the real enemy is within himself and, indeed, within each of us: we are all liable to corruption from within our envy, anger, fear, and sadness.