Literary Analysis Of John Knowles 'A Separate Peace'

Contemporary Literary Criticism states that John Knowles’ main characters often, “arrive at a painful awakening, the realization of the evil in society and themselves.” According to Knowles, this realization helps them enter adulthood. Within the novel A Separate Peace, the protagonist Gene had a “painful awakening,” to the evil that exists in society and within himself. These evils that developed within his everyday environment influenced him and helped him mature into an adult. Three events that evoked this change within Gene is his fear of jumping off the tree, when Gene pushes Finny out of the tree, and the death of Finney. Therefore, the essay will began on Gene’s fear of jumping from the tree.
The first time that Gene felt an evil was when Finny delivered peer pressure causing him to jump from the tree. The thought was that if Finney jumped from the tree, everyone else had to. After Finney jumped, Gene was next. Fear was crawling inside him trying to prevent him from jumping. According to the text, “ This tree flooded me with a sensation of alarm all the way to my tingling fingers. My head began to feel unnaturally light, and the vague

rustling sounds from the nearby woods came to me as though muffled and filtered. I must have been entering a mild state of shock.” The peer pressure that Finney put on Gene caused him to jump from the tree. “Gene felt like he had a near death experience.” When Gene felt that it is okay, the thought of bravery came to his mind.
The second time was when Gene pushes Finny out of the tree.

When Gene had the thought of pushing Finny out of the tree, he felt there was a rivalry going on between them two. Gene had the first thought of rivalry when Finny beaten the record for the fastest swimmer. The second time was when Finny had jumped from the tree the last time. Gene jolt the branch Finny was on to cause him to fall. As the author stated “....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.” This caused Gene to feel bad and realized that there was no rivalry between them. Gene had no one else to blame but

himself.
The last and final time Gene felt evil was when Finny died. Finny died from shattering his leg when he fell down the stairs. A shattered piece of bone went straight threw his heart and stopped it. Gene believed it was all his fault, but he did not cry or anything. Gene went back to the Devon 15 years later. Gene went back to the tree that his friends and him use to jump from. The time that Gene make Finny fall of the tree clouded his mind. Plus, the time that Finny died when he looked at the stairs that he died from. Gene soon just accepted what had happened and put all of it behind him.
In conclusion, all of these evils had pushed Gene into becoming mature. The most important event was when Finny died. That event changed Gene life, so much because Finny was his best friend. Even though Finny is no longer with him, he still thinks there is part of Finny inside him. Gene went back to the tree to remember his childhood and put away all those bad memories.