As a person grows and develops into an adult, there are people who help better them and people who hold them back. The book A Separate Peace by John Knowles follows Gene Forester along his journey to adulthood. With Gene is his best friend Phineas. As events push Gene to grow and mature, something holds him back, his friend Phineas. When Gene is not under Phineas’s influence, he is able to grow and become a stronger person. Phineas pulls Gene away from his responsibilities and chances for growth. Phineas tells Gene, “You never waste your time. That’s why I have to do it for you.”(Knowles 51). Gene and Finny are arguing about Gene’s goal to become top of the class. Finny tells Gene that he is working too hard and needs to waste some of his time. Finny may just be trying to give friendly advice, but in the process, he pulls Gene away from his goals and plants the seed of enmity between them. Later, when Finny finds Gene studying in their dorm room he says,”I didn’t know you needed to study” and “ Don’t move …show more content…
Gene says, “I could not escape the feeling that this was my own funereal, and you do not cry in that case”(Knowles 194). When Phineas died a piece of Gene died. That piece was the jealousy and malice he had toward Phineas. He felt malice and jealousy all the time when Finny was around; now that he no longer has cause for these feelings, Gene is free to grow. Gene says,”I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.”(Knowles 204). Gene fought his hate and fear of Phineas. He was only able to win once Phineas was gone. Finally Gene says, “if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy”(Knowles 204). This quote shows in the end Gene did not see Finny as the enemy; he saw the fear, hate, malice, and jealousy he had for Phineas as the enemy. He needed Phineas to die or at least stay away from him to realize this about himself. Whenever Phineas was in control of Gene he provoked Gene’s
In the story, Finny created a counterpart between his athleticism and Gene’s academic abilities. Since sports came easy to Finny, he assumed that Gene was naturally intelligent and smart. Finny eventually figured out that this was not true and that his assumptions were incorrect; “‘Oh for God sake! You don’t know what I’m talking about. No, of course not. Not you…’ ‘I didn’t know you needed to study,’ he said simply, ‘I didn’t think you ever did. I thought it just came to you.’ It seemed that he had made some kind of parallel between my studies and his sports. He probably thought anything you were good at came without effort” (Knowles 57-58). Finny was unable to comprehend that some skills do not come naturally to people. Devoted friendships are a result of having an appreciation for each other. Finny and Gene did not have this nor did they truly know each other very well. A lack of understanding between the two of them provoked various disputes throughout the novel. If Gene and Finny were truly friends, misunderstandings would not have occurred since they would have acknowledged their
Gene is much like Cain and because he is like Cain he has jealousy and hatred against Phineas who is Abel. When Gene wakes up at sunrise on the beach, while Finny is still sleeping. Gene realizes that he has an important exam and it will take him a long time to get back to Devon. He makes it back in time to Devon, but fails the
Throughout life, there is always a person who one strives to beat, be better than or rise above. Little does each of them know that in the end the two actually make each other stronger. In John Knowles' novel, A Separate Peace (1959), he addresses just this. The novel, told from Gene Forrester's point of view, is based on a friendship and rivalry between him and his friend, Finny, during World War II. The two sixteen year olds attend Devon School, a private all boys' school, in New Hampshire. Finny, a very athletically talented youngster, continually but unintentionally causes Gene to feel inferior and insignificant, producing inevitable anger and jealousy inside Gene. During their summer session in 1942, the boys form a Super Suicide Society; anyone wanting to join the group is required to jump from a specific tree into the running river below. On one particular night, Finny tears the irritated Gene away from his studies for no reason other than to make a plunge from the tree. After arriving at the river, the two creep out on one of the tree's limbs. Balancing as if they were on a tightrope, Gene gives a quick little bounce to the limb, causing Finny to plummet to the riverbank below, severely breaking his leg. No one is aware of Gene's intentional bounce of the tree limb, encouraged by his resentment toward Finny. Gene's jealous action causes Finny's life to change forever. He feels terrible about what he did but cannot bring himself to tell Finny the truth. Faced with many great challenges, Gene struggles through the remainder of the novel trying to find himself and develop into his own person. The truth about the tree incident is finally revealed shortly after Finny bre...
Analysis: This quote is based on the theme of envy. It is clear that Gene feels that Phineas can get away with anything. The reader can tell that Gene hate him because of this.
The novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles describes the life highschool life of Gene Forrester through the flashbacks he experienced 15 years after his graduation. Throughout the novel Knowles takes us on a journey that revolves around Gene and his friend Finny as they go through their years in a private high school. While reading the novel one can see that Gene takes his hero journey during his highschool time as he makes the choices that will dictate not only his hero journey but his entire life.
A persona is a mask shown to the outside world developed in relation to consciousness, to hide the darkest aspects of a psyche, known as a shadow, behind it. Shadows contrast personas by holding undesirable and unwanted memories and behaviors, but the dark side of an individual must be accepted for the individual to fully understand oneself. In the coming of age novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, narrator Gene Forrester returns to New Hampshire to visit Devon School, where he studied fifteen years ago just as World War II had begun to unfold. The narrative shifts back fifteen years ago to Gene’s days at Devon School with his best friend, Phineas, also known as Finny, as he recalls memorable events from his past. Gene’s persona and shadow
Gene jounces a limb of the tree he and Finny were standing on, causing Finny to fall and break his leg. Gene's jealousy of Finny's perfection causes him to have childish feelings of resentment and hatred. After Finny's leg was broken, Gene realized "that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between" (Knowles 51) him and Finny. Gene looked at himself and became conscious of what a terrible, self-absorbed friend he had been. Understanding there was no competition caused him to discard the majority of his feelings of jealousy. Getting rid of these feelings made him grow-up because he was no longer spending countless hours believing a childish game was being played between Finny and him. Gene began to understand more of Finny's goodness and love towards all, making him strive to be more like Finny.
A Separate Peace is a coming-of-age novel about two boys at boarding school and their friendship during World War II. There are three significant scenes of violence that occur in the novel; however, the core of the plot is based upon one. The first and most poignant is the incident where Gene, the narrator, jiggles the tree branch while he and Phineas, his best friend, are preparing to jump, causing Phineas to fall and break his leg. The next scene of violence is when Quackenbush calls Gene a lame and Gene pushes him into the water. Lastly, Gene pushes Leper out of his chair while visiting him after he is accused of causing Phineas’ injury. All of these occurrences contribute to the overall meaning of the work.
Impatience kills In “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, two very young people fall in love but cannot be with each other because of the feud between their families. The feud ends when Romeo and Juliet both kill themselves because of heartbreak over the other. The minor characters Mercutio, Tybalt, and Friar Lawrence serve as foils to Romeo, to help support the theme of patience. While Romeo is impatient and makes rash and hasty decisions, Friar Lawrence is careful and takes time to consider his actions. First Romeo thinks that he is in love with a nun named Rosaline, but a couple hours later he is asking the Friar to marry him to another girl she had just met.
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...
Throughout the novel, A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles conveys many messages of symbolism. The symbolism can be found in an array of ways, ranging from internal war, to the theme of human aggression, and a variety of religious principles. The main characters, Gene and Phineas, and their story could be paralleled to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. The similarities can be seen in the way in which in both of the stories, everyone is living in perfect harmony and peace until something comes along to disrupt it. Also in how the main characters do something out of jealousy, greed, and selfishness; and in addition, how Finny's fall out of a tree relates to the “Fall of Mankind.”
A Separate Peace is a coming of age novel in which Gene, the main character, revisits his high school and his traumatic teen years. When Gene was a teen-ager his best friend and roommate Phineas (Finny) was the star athlete of the school.
In the early pages of the novel, Finny confesses that Gene is his best friend. This is considered a courageous act as the students at Devon rarely show any emotion. And rather than coming back with similar affection, Gene holds back and says nothing. Gene simply cannot handle the fact that Finny is so compassionate, so athletic, so ingenuitive, so perfect. As he put it, "Phineas could get away with anything." (p. 18) In order to protect himself from accepting Finny's compassion and risking emotional suffering, Gene creates a silent rivalry with Finny, and convinced himself that Finny is deliberately attempting to ruin his schoolwork. Gene decides he and Finny are jealous of each other, and reduces their friendship to cold trickery and hostility. Gene becomes disgusted with himself after weeks of the silent rivalry. He finally discovers the truth, that Finny only wants the best for Gene, and had no hidden evil intentions. This creates a conflict for Gene as he is not able to deal with Finny's purity and his own dark emotions. On this very day Finny wants to jump off of the tree branch into the Devon river at the same time as Gene, a "double jump" (p. 51), he says, as a way of bonding. It was this decision, caused by Finny's affection for Gene and outgoing ways that resulted in drastic change for the rest of his life.
Early the novel, Gene noticed that “Phineas could get away with anything. [Gene] couldn't help envying him that a little” (Knowles 25). However, he justifies his jealousy by stating, “There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little” (25). This early example demonstrates Gene’s tendency to justify his feelings of jealousy towards Finny by using excuses instead of accepting them. Gene’s inability to accept that he has some negative feelings toward Finny, someone who considers Gene his “best friend” (?), shows his shadow because Gene expresses denial, which is a negative emotion connected to Jung’s interpretation of the shadow. A little bit later in the book, Finny is wearing the school tie as a belt. Gene shows another negative aspect of the shadow when he thinks, “This time he wasn't going to get away with it. I could feel myself becoming unexpectedly excited at that” (27). Finny is Gene’s friend, and yet Gene
Gene’s imitation of Phineas affected himself in multiple ways. Gene became jealous of, his best friend, Phineas. Alton comments, “Gene realize that his real enemy is himself and his impulse towards mindless destruction—and he believes he overcame this enemy only after causing Phineas’ death” (Alton). The quote expresses, Gene though his enemy was his best friend, but in actuality it was himself the whole time. Also,