A Separate Peace Jealousy Analysis

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One of the easiest way to corrupt a friendship is jealousy. We’ve all been there: a friend’s life is charmed while our own success seems as hard to come by as winning the lottery. Jealousy, a strong theme in A Separate Peace, can take a toll on our romantic relationships, friendly relationships, or even our familial relationships. One who is jealous is never happy. This emotion often consists of phases of anger, inadequacy, disgust, and resentment. Consequently, this could cause them to pull away from their friend and ruin the relationship. The main character, Gene Forrester, and his best friend, Phineas, have an intense love for each other. However, their friendship goes through a period of one-sided rivalry. Gene feels that Finny is trying …show more content…

“I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little” (18/25). He is clearly not only in denial, but also ashamed to be jealous. Throughout the novel, he is constantly pretending his feelings are something they are not. “This time he wasn’t going to get away with it.I could feel myself becoming unexpectedly excited at that.” “Phineas had gotten away with even this.” “He had gotten away with everything. I felt a sudden stab of disappointment. That was because I just wanted to see some more excitement; that must have been it” (27-28). The last example of denial is Finny’s disbelief of the war. He wanted to believe the war was just a bunch of fat men conferring the topic. Finny was denying the existence of the war because he knew he could not participate in it. Phineas had always got to do what he chose, so he could not stand hearing that he absolutely could not do something. These topics could not only corrupt their friendship by causing Gene to resent his best friend, but it could also cause Phineas to resent Gene in return because he has the ability to take part the

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