Similarities Between Of Mice And Men And A Separate Peace

Over the summer I read two astonishing novels, both very captivating and well-written. “A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles, takes place at a boy’s boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II, which goes into great depth about two ordinary boys, who hold together a strong bond. My favorite out of both of these books was “Of Mice and Men,” by John Steinbeck, which is a thrilling novel about two close friends who travel together in search of jobs. This award winning novel enthralled me and I couldn’t set the book down until I was finished with it!

In the distinguished book, “A Separate Peace,” Gene Forrester, an intelligent quiet young man quickly becomes great friends with his mischievous roommate, Phineas, who is an athletic daredevil at a boy’s boarding school. The two boys form a great bond

between each other, but Gene begins to envy his friend’s phenomenal athletic abilities and begins to believe that Finny envies his academic abilities. Gene begins to suspect that Finny has tried to distract Gene from his studies, but Gene’s suspicion quickly turns into detestation for his friend.
Gene quickly realizes that the rivalries were not true and accompanies Finny to the tree near the river for their jumping ritual, but when Gene begins to leap, the tree branch quivers and Finny loses his balance and tumbles down upon the sandy river bank and shatters his leg. After Gene is informed that Finny’s athletic days are over, he is crushed by waves of guilt and rushed to Phineas’s side to confess that his shattered leg was his fault. Later in the novel Finny descended down a flight of stairs in an attempt to rush away from Gene and the rest of his friends, but once again, Phineas broke his leg and bone marrow sept into his bloodstream, which quickly makes its way to his heart and killed him.
Of Mice and Men is a captivating book written by John Steinbeck, a Nobel Prize Winner in Literature. This novel was published in 1937, and revolves around the lives of Lennie Small and George Milton, two discrete ranch workers. Lennie and George both travel from place to place in search of a new job during the Great Depression in California, but unlike other ranch workers, they travel together. George and Lennie are both very different, but together they have an unbreakable friendship. George is an intelligent man who cannot afford schooling, but teaches and protects his tremendously large friend, Lennie. Lennie is a herculean man with a large bone structure and great strength and a kind heart, but lacks the education of a full grown man and acts like a small child. Both of these characters share a dream of working together on their own portion of land, where they would both farm and care for the animals, and to Lennie’s great delight, he’d care for the rabbits.
Together Lennie and George work at a ranch in California, but after a few days Lennie and George have already caused trouble. Lennie and Curley’s wife have a conversation and after admitting that he liked to pet soft items, Curley’s wife lets Lennie touch her soft locks of hair. When Lennie grabs her hair too tightly she cries out in sudden pain. Lennie quickly became frightened and tried to quiet the screaming feminine, but in an attempt to do so, Lennie broke her neck. The ranch hands quickly found out and went after Lennie with guns, who had fled in fright into the woods. After running, George had found his friend, and after deciding it would be for his own good, he shot him in the back of Lennie’s head.
Together, these books are both very engrossing, and the friendships of these two sets of characters are both indestructible.

George is an intelligent, small, quick witted man who travels with his friend Lennie and cares for him greatly, but also believes that looking out for Lennie is a tedious task. Gene is also very intelligent and has a great bond with his friend Phineas, where Gene has a great jealousy for his friend’s athletic abilities. Together, these two separate sets of characters are both very alike and both have a love-hate relationship. “When I think of the swell time I could have without you, I go nuts. I never get no peace.” George claims angrily in the novel “Of Mice and Men” but quickly takes it back, and says, “No-Look! I was jus’ foolin’, Lennie. ‘Cause I want you to stay with me.” George knows he could get a good job and live easily without looking out for Lennie the whole time, but George and Lennie are close friends and can’t seem to just walk away. Gene and Phineas are both very close, and in the novel Gene sometimes abhors Phineas for his astonishing athletic abilities but still, Gene chose to hold together their friendship just like

George.
In both books the two sets of main characters both have an amazing bond between each other and both go through rocky times, but their friendships still lasts even after appalling incidents occur, but both friendships eventually come to an end. In John Steinbeck’s award winning novel, Lennie always seems to accidently find himself getting in trouble, but George protects him, and their friendship always seems to last, even after Lennie had an egregious accident, and killed Curley’s wife. When Lennie was terrified George was going to be furious with him after killing Curley’s wife, he asked George, “I thought you was mad at me, George.” But George only said “No, Lennie. I ain’t mad at you. I never been mad an’ I ain’t now.” In John Knowles’s fascinating novel, Finny shatters his leg and Gene confesses it was his entire fault, they went through their ups and downs just like George and Lennie, but their friendship was still bound together until Phineas had died. So both sets of friends hate an unbreakable friendship that even lasted through hard times.
I believe both of these novels teach us to fallow our dreams, and teaches the readers that friendship will always be there, through good times and bad, and tells us that two complete opposites can hold together a strong friendship. In “Of Mice and Men” George refused to leave Lennie alone, endangering his happiness to make sure his best friend was all right. Although, George had to make a tough decision at the end of the book, to have strangers kill him, or his best friend. In “A Separate Peace” Gene learns to accept the fact that he is his own, separate person who can make his own decisions and path, he does not need to be like Phineas. I believe that John Knowles was trying to tell us that we need to be our own person and always to tell the truth and be cautious about the actions that you take.