At the beginning of the literary criticism, it discusses how the book, A Separate Peace, began growing in popularity through the 1900’s. The book was first published by Secker and Wanderburg in London, England (Alton). Its sales drastically went up after it won the William Faulkner Foundation Award (Alton). After that, many teachers wanted A Separate peace to replace the classic, Catcher and the Rye, due to the profanity found in the latter (Alton). After that, the various authors in the literary criticism discuss the praises and criticisms they have of the plot and characters in A Separate Peace. The first praise comes from David Holborn. He discusses how the flashback technique used at the beginning of the novel helps draw the reader …show more content…
in, provide insight as to what might happen later in the book, and provide adequate background information. The story opens as Gene is returning to Devon School. After describing the places at the school, such as the tree and marble floor, which both play major parts later the story, the reader is quickly transported to the idyllic summer of 1942, where the story takes place (Holborn).
The second positive criticism comes from Anne Alton. She stated that the characterization in the novel was incredible. The main characters’ names weren’t just names; they each had meanings behind them that went along with their character and their actions. She uses Finny as an example; Phineas, who was son of Aaron in the Bible, was a judge; Finny is constantly judging Gene throughout the novel. Though there are many praises for A Separate Peace, there are also many criticisms. One criticism from Alton is how in depth the author, Knowles, goes in parts of the story. It distracts the reader from the main plot and is usually giving the reader unnecessary information (Alton). Alton also mentions how the minor characters, excluding Leper and Brinker, are weak and underdeveloped. Alton states that they are merely “stock characters”; they are just there to fill the gaps in the novel and don’t contribute to or change the overall plot (Alton). Another criticism is how unreliable Gene’s narrative becomes as the story progresses. We only see Finny and the other characters how Gene does; since we don’t have an outside point of view, and Gene changes his mind about how he feels about Finny multiple times throughout the story, it is hard to differentiate which qualities and statements are true …show more content…
and which are false. There are many things that are true about the literary criticism.
For starters, Alton was correct when he stated that Gene’s narratives were unreliable. Since the story was told from Gene’s point of view, we had no outside opinions of the characters (Alton). For example, the scene where Finny falls out of the tree is very confusing at points. Gene contradicts himself multiple times. When the accident first happened, he states that he did indeed jounce the limb, but in Leper’s mock-trial later in the book, he denies jouncing the limb many times. This is just one of the many examples of this happening throughout the book (Alton). Mengeling was also correct when he stated that there is not only a world war happening on the surface, but there is also a war happening between Gene and Finny. For starters, Gene is in a constant competition with Finny no matter what he does. He even states in his own words that Finny is “too good to be true” (Mengeling). He breaks the swimming record simply because he was challenged to do so. He never studied and somehow managed to get good grades throughout the year. Gene was constantly having to compete with that, even though he knew that he couldn’t. The war started off as a conflict between Finny and Gene, but throughout the book, subsided as Gene’s internal war took over. Gene realized that if he couldn’t beat Finny in anything, he would become Finny. He started to dress like Finny and copy his actions. Finny only encouraged
these actions. He stated himself, “if I can’t run, you are going to do it for me” (Mengeling). He began training and developing Gene into a mirror image of himself. Gene’s issues continued to spiral out of control, and in the end, Finny ended up dead. The reader is left to speculate whether or not Gene’s mental condition played a part in Finny’s demise. On the flip side, when Alton stated that many of the minor characters were undeveloped and had no contribution to the plot, she was wrong (Alton). Leper and Brinker, who are not main characters, had major contributions to the plot. The mock-trial Brinker held in the dungeon of the school played a major role in developing the plot of the story. This played a major part of the novel; it gave insight as to what might have actually happened at the tree, and it gave the reader insight to Gene’s true character. When he snapped at Brinker during the trial, it gave the reader adequate proof to think that Gene may actually have some psychological issues. These potential issues can interfere with Gene’s ability to provide an adequate narration.
First, I believe that Gene and Finny were not sincerely friends throughout the novel due to their relationship being driven by competitiveness. Along with the competitive atmosphere came jealously, envy and enmity. Gene created a rivalry between him and Finny. Since Finny was
expressing individualism is elicited by Gene and Finny actions. Some ways the characters are forced to conform are by peer pressure, as evident in the excerpt,. In this citation, conformity is shown through Gene’s decision of complying with what Finny orders, due to peer pressure of jump off the tree, therefore nearly injuring himself. Furthermore, he realizes it wasn’t his culpability of being in that position, due to if Finny wasn't there none of this would have occurred. Even more, this led to Gene feeling a desire to assert his individualism, due to he feels that Finny has surpassed him in every way, and cause his failure, such as in his academics. As well, Phineas
Although it starts after half the book is finished, one of the major examples of denying the truth in the novel is Finny denying the reality of the war. Though it is disclosed at the end that Finny knew all along about the war, he succeeds, after a little time, in making Gene truly believe in the non-existence of the war (although Gene claims that he did not really believe the story, his behavior around his classmates and his actions say otherwise). The first result we see of this denial is Finny’s confession of his bitterness towards the world because of his loss. This destroys the image we have of Finny as a “perfect” person because it shows that he blames the world for his accident. It also stuns Gene so much that he begins to do pull-ups, even though he has never done even ten before. With Finny’s verbal help, Gene manages to do thirty. This solidifies the friendship between them. After this moment, Finny decides to take Gene into his confidence and tells him he wanted to go to the 1944 Olympics, but that Gene will have to go instead, and goes on to start training Gene. Finally, after many mornings of hard training, Gene finally “[finds] his rhythm”. Superficially, it can be said that due to Finny’s ruse about the war, Gene became very...
Have you ever had negative thoughts or feelings towards a friend? Envy is a natural condition and likely has evolutionary roots. John Knowles’ book, A Separate Peace, focuses on the complicated friendship between two teenage boys, and the resulting loss of innocence of the protagonist, Gene Forrester. Gene struggles with inner wars such as jealousy, inferiority, and guilt towards his best friend, Phineas.
Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affects him on a personal level throughout the novel.
Finny and Gene were two very contrasting characters who both had their flaws, but in the end one was stronger than the other. On one end of the spectrum, Gene was associated with the traits of bitterness, hate, jealousy, secrecy, and he was a very loathing person. And on the other end, Finny was a light-hearted, good spirited, young, optimistic character. Gene throughout the book developed and changed extensively, and in the end came out the stronger character. Finny was definitely a crowd pleaser, but, Gene was the more solid and strong of the two because of his massive changes, making him a dynamic character.
He becomes aware of Finny’s endurance, as “nothing as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last [Gene] had” (203). Following Finny’s death, Gene states how absolutely nothing could break Finny, not even a war. But the evilness of his shadow and unconscious self could, and cause Finny’s death. One’s shadow can be toxic when displayed to the outside world, especially when it is not in check by the individual. Gene has accepted his dark side when he admits he had been the cause of his friend’s death. In the very end of the novel, Gene finally takes responsibility for all of his shadow’s actions against his best friend, as he thinks to himself, “I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there” (204). Gene’s transformation from the beginning of the novel to the end is clearly seen in this quotation, as he no longer denies his shadow’s existence and now claims responsibility of the darkness inside himself. He illustrates himself as being on active duty at all times at school, staying on guard for any of Finny’s tricks that may potentially cause him to fall behind in his studies. His war with Finny, whom he once
Gene sets himself up to become the inferior in his relationship with Finny because of his distrusting nature, but his yielding to Finny’s power motivates him to no longer be the lackey but rather the leader. In Gene’s quest for dominance, his initial steps are passive; he seeks to portray Finny as an antagonist and look better in comparison. Gene’s plan escalates as he takes away power from Finny physically. This proceeds into an obsession with him, convincing Gene that the only way to gain power is to become Finny. Knowles uses Gene’s escalation of his plot for power to warn readers to be wary of those seeking power. Through Gene, he advises the reader that individuals who seek power will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.
The American Library Association defines a challenge to a book as, “an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based on the objections of a person or group” (“About Banned). A Separate Peace by John Knowles was one of the many challenged books of its time; it was ranked sixty-seventh on the American Literature Association’s list of most challenged classic novels The book continues to be challenged all over the country and in 2013 it is ranked thirty-fifth on the summer of banned books list .(ALA). A Separate Peace chronicles the life of a boy named Gene Forrester, a student of the prestigious Devon School in New Hampshire. In Gene’s first year at Devon. He becomes close friends with his daredevil of a roommate Finny. Secretly Gene somewhat
The theme “rite of passage” was used in the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. This moving from innocence to adulthood was contained within three sets of interconnected symbols: summer and winter, the Devon and Naguamsett Rivers, and peace and war. These symbols served as a backdrop upon which the novel was developed. The loss if Gene Forrester’s innocence was examined through these motifs.
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion. It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) A Separate Peace (1959) written by John Knowles, expresses the true struggle to respect ones individuality. In 1942 at a private school in New Hampshire Gene Forrester became good friends with his roommate, Finny. He envies Finny for his great Athletic ability. In spite of the envy, Gene and Finny do everything together and one day for fun they decide to jump out of a tree into the river. After that they form the Super Suicide Society, the first time they jumped being their reason for formation. During one of their meetings they decide to jump off at the same time. When they get up on the limb Gene bounces it and Finny falls on the bank. He shatters the bones in his leg and will never again play sports. Nobody realizes that Gene deliberately made Finny lose his balance. Because of the accident Gene does not play sports either and continues being friends with Finny. One night, some of the other guys from Devon School woke Gene and Finny up in the middle of the night. They are suspicious of the "accident." They conduct a trial to blame Gene for what has happened to Finny. Eventually Finny gets upset in the midst of argument and runs out. He ends up tripping and falling down the stairs, and breaking his healed leg allover again. It was a cleaner break this time but they still have to set it. Gene confesses to Finny that he bounced him out of the tree. While setting the break there are complications and Finny dies. Gene learns that he is his own person and now that Finny is gone he can finally be content with himself. In the beginning Gene feels inferior to Finny.
Beyond the basic need for a sense of control, people are driven by their sense of identity, of who they are. Each person lives in their own universes, which are centered upon their feeling of self-purpose. There are multiple types of identities such as individual and group identities. Each person's identity is formed differently because of the unique experiences every individual encounters. The formation can be affected by many things such as their home environment, social concurrences, and physiological health. This story, A Separate Peace, exhibits interesting main characters which establish the frequent struggles of personal identity in adolescence.
In the beginning of the novel, Gene, is a clueless individual. He sees the worst in people and lets his evil side take over not only his mind but also his body. During the tree scene, Gene convinces himself that Finny isn’t his friend, tricking himself into thinking that Finny is a conniving foil that wants to sabotage his academic merit. Gene is furthermore deluded that every time Finny invites Gene somewhere it’s to keep him from studying and doing well. Finny has a reputation for being the the best athlete in school, and Gene attempts to counterbalance Finny’s power by being the best student. After a while of joining Finny’s activities, Gene thinks that Finny is intentionally trying to make him fail out of school. He starts to dislike Finny and his activities, and Gene starts interrupt...
From the Crusades to the American-Indian wars, many different events have been fueled by jealously throughout history. It has lead men to lie, kill and cheat against each other since the beginning of time. Jealousy exists in every one of us, no one can hide from this toxic disease; learning to control this vile emotion will be a struggle. A Separate Peace by John Knowles, that takes place during WWII, is no exception.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles shows that Gene, Finny, and Leper set up Maginot Lines that are ineffective and eventually lead to their own destruction.