Seperate Peace Summary

837 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Identity development

A Separate Peace

Gene Forrester is a quiet, intellectual student at Devon School in New
Hampshire. During the Summer Session of 1942, he becomes close friends with his daredevil roommate Finny, who has a talent for getting away with mischief through his sincere, disarming charisma. Finny prods Gene into making a dangerous jump out of a tree into a river, and the two start a secret society based on this ritual. Gene envies Finny's astonishing athletic abilities, and he begins to suspect that Finny envies his superior academic achievements and has been taking steps to distract him from his studies. His suspicions turn to hatred, but he makes sure to maintain an appearance of friendship so Finny will not suspect him.
Gene realizes he was grievously mistaken about the existence of any rivalry between them one day when Finny expresses a sincere desire to see Gene succeed. He goes to the tree to jump with Finny while he is still in a state of shock from the force of his realization, and when
Finny gets out to the edge of the branch, Gene shakes it, causing Finny to fall to the bank and shatter his leg. The doctor tells Gene that
Finny's athletic days are over. Gene goes in to see Finny and begins to confess what he has done, but the doctor interrupts him and Finny is sent home before Gene gets another chance.
The Summer Session ends, and Gene goes home for a brief vacation. On his way back to the school from his home in the South, Gene stops by Finny's house a...

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast A Separate Peace

    447 Words  | 1 Pages

    John Knowles writes a compelling realistic fiction about the lives of two teenage boys throughout the start of World War II in his novel A Separate Peace. Peter Yates the director of the movie plays the story out in a well organized theatrical manner. There are similarities and differences in these two works of art. However; there are also similarities.

    Read More

  • Perception of Others in A Separate Peave by John Knowles

    1267 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gene believes that people are deliberately out to get him and concentrates only on grasping the evil within his friends. Therefore, Gene decides to defeat his enemies before he gets defeated himself. During the summer session at Devon, Gene encounters a dark suspicion that his friend Finny is drawing him away from his studies in order to make him fail. This makes sense to Gene since he religiously follows the rules to win approval from the staff at Devon, and anyone who persuades him to disobey these rules wishes failure upon him. Therefore, Finny

    Read More

  • Finny And Gene Comparison Essay

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Gene's Shadow In John Knowles A Separate Peace

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    Additionally, Gene justifies his hatred towards Finny by assuming Finny feels hatred towards him because of his excellence in academics. At this moment, Gene does not attempt to deny his shadow. Rather, he embraces his shadow completely, allowing it take him over and make false accusations against his own best friend. In Gene’s mind, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies. That explained blitz all, that explained the nightly meetings of the Super Suicide Society, that explains his insistence that I share all his diversions.

    Read More

  • Jealousy In John Knowles A Separate Peace

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Before Gene and Finny went to perform a double jump off the tree, Gene again starts contemplating ways that Finny is jealous of him. Gene states, “The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. You did hate him for breaking that school swimming record, but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term. You would have had an A in that one except for him. Except for him” (Knowles 53) . Gene knew that he had an immense amount of jealousy towards Finny, so instead of trying to remove it, he comes up with a plethora of ideas to try and justify it. Gene thinks of these ideas right before he jounces the tree limb. Gene narrates, “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb(Knowles, 60). Gene’s differing feelings are expressed in a small gesture which demolishes Finny’s life. Seeing Finny fail briefly relieved Gene’s anger and jealousy. Gene says, “It was the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make. With unthinking sureness I moved out on the limb and jumped into the river, every trace of my fear of this forgotten” (Knowles, 60). This is the first time that Gene jumps off the tree with complete confidence. The failure of his lethal rival allows Gene to behave as Finny, and ultimately become

    Read More

  • Gene's Coming of Age in A Separate Peace

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Separate Peace

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Gene’s Transformation throughout "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles

    582 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • A Separate Peace

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.”

    Read More

  • A Separate Peace

    659 Words  | 2 Pages

    feels that he has to get revenge. This anger leads to Gene jouncing Finny out of the tree.

    Read More

  • A seperate peace

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    In John Knowles novel A Separate Peace the quote "Everything has to evolve or else it perishes" (125), serves as a realization that instead of dwelling in the past, everything needs to move forward or else it will be left behind to be forgotten. This quote refers to the boys. Throughout the book they have to be able to deal with all that is thrown at them including all of the changes that are occurring during the war. Each boy has evolved in some way. Gene is finally learning to except his emotions, Finny is admitting the bad, and Leper the person you would least expect to be in the war joined the war.

    Read More

  • Rivalry In A Separate Peace

    1545 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Searching For Independence In Dubliners

    1683 Words  | 4 Pages

    Parts of the story begin to demonstrate how the journey the boys have embarked on have awakened their senses. In the middle of the story, Mahony states it would be fun to board one of the large boats along the river, and set off to lands that they had only heard about in school.

    Read More

  • A Separate Peace Essays - Gene’s Enemies

    1704 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gene believes that Finny and he hate each other, until he realizes Finny’s pureness, which Gene can not stand.  At first, Gene believes that Finny wants to exceed him, and that the two are rivals.  Everyone at Devon likes Finny.  The teachers adore him, the students look up to him, the athletes aspire to be like him.  Finny has no enemies.  Gene, however, sees through Finny’s “cover” and thinks they hate each other.  He hates Finny for beating A. Hopkins swimming record, and for making him jump from the tree, and for being better than Gene.  When Finny takes Gene to the beach, Finny tells Gene that they are “best pals.”  Gene does not respond to Finny’s sincere gesture because he thinks Finny wants to sabotage him.  Gene realizes that he and Finny are “even after all, even in enmity.  The deadly rivalry was on both sides after all” (46).  Gene has no proof of Finny’s hatred, but Gene needs to find a way to be even with Finny.  Once he decides they are even, he must now surpass Finny, so he jounces the limb.  Gene’s hatred takes over, only now he realizes that the hatred only comes from one side.  Finny is pure.  He never hates Gene; he loves Gene like he loves everyone else.  Ge...

    Read More

More about Seperate Peace Summary

Open Document