Sense Of Self In A Separate Peace, By John Knowles

A strong sense of self, in the words of William Shakespeare, is “To know what we are, but not what we might be.” In the book, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the main character, Gene, ¬¬struggled with having a strong sense of self. His lack of identity negatively affected his life. The major consequence of his absent sense of self was his burning envy and hatred toward his extremely athletically gifted friend Finny. Gene’s lack of identity and hatred toward Finny led him to shake a limb if a tree that Finny was climbing. Finny fell and broke his leg. He later died when the bone marrow escaped into his blood. Gene’s behavior caused Finny’s death but there is reason to believe that Finny would have died anyway. For example, Finny could have been killed in the army, Finny’s lack of caution caused him to break his leg again, and the branch would have broken since it was already weak causing Finny to fall and die.

If Finny was drafted into the army, he most likely would have been killed in action. Finny felt an overwhelming hate towards enlisting as shown on page 107, Finny cried “Enlist!” His deep fury toward anyone enlisting in the army would have led him to wait until he was drafted. If he was to be drafted, he most likely would have been placed in the infantry as shown on page 199, Gene explained “I was going to wait and be drafted, but if I did that they might put me straight in the infantry, and that’s not only the dirtiest but also the most dangerous branch of all, the worst branch of all.” If the probability of Gene being drafted into the army was immensely high, then there would be a high chance that Finny would have been drafted into the infantry as well. The infantry had the greatest casualty toll of all the division...

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...ranches. The weakening of those branches would have increased the chance of the tree limbs snapping sending Finny to his fall.

In the words of Joseph Stalin, “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” The death of Finny was a tragedy, but was one that probably could not have been avoided. In the book, there was sufficient evidence that strengthened the possibilities of Finny’s death. Those possibilities did not rid Gene of all consequence. It was partially his fault. Those possibilities, however, suggest that Finny’s life would not have been spared had Gene had a stronger identity. If Gene had had a stronger sense of self, then he might have not jounced the limb. Sufficient evidence suggested that Phineas would have been killed in the army, broken his leg a second time from a lack of caution, and fallen from the tree for the branch would have broken.