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friendship in a separate peace by John Knowles
Finding out who someone really is can be a very difficult thing to do. Knowing who some one is inside and out takes time and dedication. I learned that there are a few key factors when getting to know who some one really is. Character determination of a friend can be based on three things, honesty, trust, conflicts, and how they are resolved . The book a separate peace by John Knowles deals with all of these issues in the case of friendship. You can use these three factors to see how good of a friend a person can be, and determine there true character.
All through the fifteen years I’ve lived this life there has always been one redundant term told over and over. Honesty is key, and if your talking about a friendship that ‘s true. If you don’t have honesty you don’t have anything to base your relationship on. Being honest to a good friend should be subconscious, and if it’s not then I wouldn’t consider them a good friend. You shouldn’t have to struggle with a friend to be honest. In a Separate peace Finny is always honest and speaks his mind. Gene on the other hand comes across honest, but you can never really tell. He
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Physical and mental wars can do this easily. Gene fought a mental war with himself over the tree incident, and weather or not he did it on purpose. He fought for so long that he gave up and pushed the issue away. He was changed after that. He didn’t even know where his friendship stood with Finny. He became dishonest about the accident with other people, and untrustworthy worthy to Finny. The physical war that Leper was in probably changed him in the ways of honesty and how he resolved conflicts cause he was crazy. Also, after being in a war trust because you would have to question the integrity of the people that were killing each other. Those are the two most important factors when you have to determine someone as a
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
As the novel opens, Gene Forrester returns to Devon, the New Hampshire boarding school he attended during World War II. Gene has not seen Devon for 15 years, and so he notices the ways in which the school has changed since he was a student there. Strangely, the school seems newer, but perhaps, he thinks, the buildings are just better taken care of now that the war is over.
The main character in my book, A Separate Peace, is Gene Forrester. At the beginning of the book, Gene is an innocent boy, going along with everything his roommate, the outgoing and energetic Phineas, says. “What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into doing stupid things like this?” (17) During this scene in the book, Gene is questioning his decision to jump out of a very tall tree, which he was convinced to climb by Phineas. As the story continues, Gene starts to believe that Phineas is trying to sabotage him. He thinks that Phineas is doing this so that he can be better at everything. However, in reality, Phineas is honestly just trying to have fun with Gene. “You and Phineas are even already… You did hate him for beating 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 except for him… Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies!” (53) After this realization, Gene is bitter toward Phineas. When the chance arrives, Gene takes it. Furious and not thinking, Gene knocks Phineas out of the tree they are both standing in. “And then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me… and then he tumbled sideways.” (60) After this incident, Gene feels incredibly guilty. He tries to confess to Phineas, but Finny just thinks he is crazy. He really believes that he just slipped and fell. Finally, Phineas realizes the truth and becomes furious with Gene. However, when he runs away from Gene on his already broken leg, he falls and causes another fracture. “Then these separate sounds collided into the general tumult of his body falling clumsily down the white marble steps.” (177) While ...
In life, as well in books there can be a lot of friendship going on; in some cases there can be bad friendships and there can be good friendships. In A Separate Peace Gene, in my opinion, Gene is not a good friend. In Catcher in the Rye Holden, in my opinion, is also not a good friend. I think that Holden and Gene are not good friends to other people and do not really know how to keep a friendship, because even though they both have friends, they both still discern their friends in bad ways or think bad things about them; because the person or friend has done something bad towards them or because they feel insecure towards the person or the situation that they are in.
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 A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, two boys named Gene and Finny attend a New England boarding school, the Devon School, where they learn to overcome challenging obstacles and make life-changing decisions as they come of age. The boys live in a microcosm of World War II, with loyalty and deception being major elements of Devon. Gene is an introverted, hard working intellectual and his friend, Phineas, is an outgoing, daring athlete. When jealousy and competition start to come into play, tensions begin to rise. Through Gene and Finny’s perspectives on jealousy and the competition between them, John Knowles illustrates their rivalry as the barrier dividing the boys and their friendship.
War and peace exist in more ways than large military conflicts, occurring between ideas and between people. Themes often explored in literature, war and peace, can be represented simply as personal conflicts, such as those between close friends. John Knowles’ A Separate Peace deals with the issue of war and peace by showing Peace, personified by Phineas, to be happy, naïve and confident, and War, personified by Gene, to be tortured, malicious and insecure, and that resolution to the conflict between them comes only from an understanding of the world around them.
In "A Separate Peace" many characteristics of becoming a man can be seen. For example, as the novel progresses, so does Gene's maturity. Gene's first seen in the novel as a boy, not yet brought on by nature, but as one gets deeper into the novel, one sees change; Gene embarks on life change that all men journey through once in their life. Gene begins to see his life and others from a totally new standpoint, as though even from a newer perspective. In Chapter two and chapter three, Gene, develops a sheer envy for Finny, and acknowledges it as the truth. He is extremely envious of the methods in which Finny uses to escape his unusual actions and his popularity. He embeds himself in a pool of self-assurance, by repeatedly telling himself over and over again that having
In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the language surrounding Gene's "double vision" emphasizes his conflicted emotional state. After leaving Finny's room, Gene begins to walk around the Devon campus at night, coming across the gym in the process. Gene noticed that the gym was a familiar building he was accustomed to seeing, but it was also something completely different and foreign to him. As he was gazing up at the gym, Gene notes that "There was something innately strange about it, as though there had always been an inner core to the gym which I had never perceived before, quite different from its generally accepted appearance" (Knowles). The way Gene describes the building and its inner core makes it evident that he is actually speaking
The setting the novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is set in the year 1942 right in the middle of World War II. It is placed at Devon School an all boys academy, in a time of war. Being at an all boys school in this time, or any time jealousy is sure to rise. Training for war is sure to heighten this jealousy between the boys there. They seem to be excited to be going to war, but little do Gene and Finny know what’s coming their way.
The first time that the friendship is shown is at the end of chapter three, when Gene describes Phineas as his best friend. Gene follows Phineas in everything: when they go to the beach, when they jump from the tree, when he participate to create the Super Suicide Society of the summer session and when they create “blitzball”. But sometimes Gene is also jealous about Phineas, an example would be when Phineas break the swimming record. When in chapter three Gene says “In such a nonstop game he also had the natural advantage of a flow of energy which
War always changes individuals, both citizens on the home front of their home country or soldiers actually fighting in the war. Specifically, World War II negatively impacted all of the persons in the United States. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles utilizes the setting of World War II at the Devon School to show how the war affects people. Knowles uses the characterization of the students to show the early onset of manhood, the change of the character of Leper Lepellier, and the inner conflict of Gene and Finny to prove that the idea of the war itself negatively transforms individuals.
Friendship, it can be for pleasure, money, or self gain, but the friendship that is the most scarce is that of a true friendship. True friendship is that which “stands as a challenge to the tenor of our times”.(May) True friendship is shared mutually between two people that are open and intimate. When you share personal details and experiences in your life to one another and trust one another, you develop a true friendship that is not about money or personal gain, but about being involved with the life of another human being. An example of one of these friendships is the friendship between Lennie Small and George Milton in the book Of Mice and Men.
Friendship is the most wonderful relationship that anyone can have. Ideally a friend is a person who offers love and respect and will never leave or betray us. Friends can tell harsh truths when they must be told. There are four different types of friends: True friends, Convenient friends, Special interest friends, and historical friends. To have friendship is to have comfort. In times of crisis and depression, a friend is there to calm us and to help lift up our spirits.
A good friend may not have all these traits. If someone is a gossip, you shouldn't get too close with him or her. If they are known for betrayal and being dishonest you should think about it and probably take one step away from them. According to the site “Being Friends,” friends should listen to each other, not put each other down to hurt one another, understand each others feelings, disagree without hurting each other, and be dependable and trustworthy. When finding friends you should look out for the good and the bad. See which traits are most important to you and make sure your friends have more good than bad traits. This will create compatible friends for you who hopefully remain with you for a lifetime!