In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Phineas has a foundational characteristic, by which he is just his unique self. Everyone enjoys is company, and likes to be around him; Specifically, he is adventurous, likes to play around, impulsive, and less rational. Also, Phineas can provocative, but too provocative at some points of the novel. In fact, when he wants something done it happens. Some characters in the novel are less impulsive and do the things because he can be persuasive, along with being in endearing or genial to others and only thinks about himself. One reason to support this is that on page 27, Mr. Patch-Withers, his wife, Gene, and Phineas are at a tea party are discussing about the bombing in Central Europe. As the discussion …show more content…
Of course he isn’t here. But it would be just as embarrassing in front of you and Mrs. Patch-Withers,”. This explains how Phineas is not serious and does not take things into consideration, especially when he joked around with the substitute headmaster on the topic of his trousers falling off. Another reason is on page 114 Phineas asks Gene if he has really taken in all of the war matters, but then tells Gene that there is no war actually happening. Gene then says that it is just the medicine he is taking that is making himself think like that. Phineas disagrees telling him that everyone is on a “medicine drug”. On page 115 in the book, the text says “The fat old men who don’t want us crowding them out of their jobs. They’ve made it all up. There isn’t any real food shortage, for instance. The men have all the best steaks delivered to their clubs now. You’ve noticed how they’ve been getting fatter lately, haven’t you?”. This means that Phineas has an imagnerary image or mindset that there are men who are making everyone delusional, and no war exists between the “United States of America, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan”. This also explains how Phineases can come up with childish assumptions about the war,
The first time his inner enemy is shown in the novel, is when Gene believes that Finny is out to make him fail; “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies” (53). Phineas persuades Gene to go surfing at the beach, play blitzball, and attend the summer session meetings to loosen him up and have fun, not to make him fail. Gene cannot realize that Finny is doing this for Gene’s benefit, because his inner enemy distorts friendship from evil and fear. Gene’s inner enemy causes a key turning point in this novel, Finny’s fall. Gene’s enemy takes over his mind and jounces the branch to hurt the “enemy,” Phineas. Though Finny is the one physically falling, Gene is metaphorically falling into a hole filled with all his sins, because his inner enemy, too, pushed him. This causes Gene to feel like a worthless ant for the rest of the novel. Many of the students at Devon have an inner enemy that makes them feel like an ant. Quackenbush is mean to anyone he thinks is inferior to him. Brinker resents his enemies. On the other hand, Leper faces his enemy, but then gives up. These students believe that their real enemy is literally the Germans, but truly it is themselves putting up walls and making them feel like miniscule ants. All except Phineas. Phineas is the only one towhich the quote doesn’t apply because he never, “constructed at infinite cost to
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.
The Great Gatsby is centered around three main characters. F. Scott Fitzgerald examines the characters of Gatsby, Nick, and Daisy in The Great Gatsby. Each of these characters is different in many ways. Daisy is in an unhappy marriage, but is content until she meets Gatsby again. Gatsby and Nick each love Daisy in different ways and want to see her happy. However, despite their best efforts, the three characters all part ways, and there is no happy ending for them.
Apollo Character Traits First Character Trait: Selfishness. Throughout the book, Apollo only wanted to gain his powers as a god again and go back to Mount. Olympus, cared for only his own troubles, and cared for only himself (only in the beginning though). This all proves The main reason for Apollo wanting to finish his quest, which requires Apollo to find and restore the other four oracles, is to regain his position in the Olympian Council and earn his godly powers and privileges back. The apartment that Apollo arrived in “ had no grand throne room, no colonnades,no terraces or banquet halls or even a thermal room..
...couldn’t see anyone as his enemy. Even Gene had his own enemy to kill, “I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there. Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone (Knowles 196).”
When you take them together, however, you discover the complicated and unique individual that is Jay Gatsby. One of the traits of Gatsby that makes him truly great is his remarkable capacity for hope. He has faith that what he desires will come to him if he works hard enough. He does not comprehend the cruelty and danger that is the rest of the world. Gatsby, while a man of questionable morals, is as wide-eyed and innocent as a small child in his views of the world.
Phineas denied the war again and again. Phineas kept denying that there was a war because he didn’t want to accept that Gene had broken his leg on purpose and that Gene would go off to fight it the war and he couldn’t because Gene broke his leg. You can see that he didn’t want to accept it because when they were doing the trial Phineas got up and ran way until he broke his leg and then when Gene came to visit him he tried to get away from
I would say that Finny(Phineas) was the biggest idealist in the story. His feelings and many things on many issues, made me think of him this way. The actions that Finny take in the novel make him seem as though he is the happiest person on the planet, like for instance when he says "There is no war", this showed that he wasn't really bothered by the war which during that time period I believe it meant happiness. Finny also never lost faith in his so called friend Gene even though I think he knew in the back of his mind that Gene was against him the whole time yet also admired him at the same point. Finny was spontanious person like the first time they jumped off the tree, and when he broke the school swimming record. Even with all of this Finny couldn't seem to take it upon himself to believe certain things like, Gene breaking his leg, or there not being a war. Although after breaking his leg however Finny is faced with his own personal struggle the bitterness of being a cripple and attempting to live in a world where sports and enlistment in the army are no longer a possibility. I think the second time Finny broke his leg he came to be one with the reality that he was in fact ruined, and that most of it was caused by Gene, and Gene's ill-will toward him, which caused him to be cripple in the first place. Yet Finny still thought to see his dreams out, only this time through Finny, he said things like Gene i'm going to start conditioning you for the olympics, and so forth and so on. Finny in all cases was the "Idealist" of the story, one of the close contenders was Leper though, yet Finny still was more idealistic.
“Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud, 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 forgotten.” (Knowles 59-60). Gene Forrester, one of the main characters in John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace, describes his best friend Phineas' fall from a “tremendous tree, an irate steely black steeple beside a river,”(Knowles 6) at their all boys boarding school, Devon. Gene is an introverted young boy who is very academically gifted. Finny, however, is an extremely extroverted childish young boy who is very athleticaly gifted. Finny's fall eventually leads to terrible things, such as death and guilt. Throughout the novel Knowles uses Phineas' fall from the tree to symbolize his loss of innocence, to show Gene's guilt, and to develop Phinea's death.
You can learn a lot about a character by the people they associate themselves with. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of Jay Gatsby’s fight to win Daisy Buchanan’s love, but does not realize that it is impossible, because Daisy will never truly love Gatsby. Daisy does not even love the family she has. Daisy Buchanan, the self-absorbed wife of Tom Buchanan, proves that the only thing she truly loves is old money and her status by how she interacts with her so-called loved ones, such as Jay Gatsby, Tom and Pammy Buchanan.
In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Demetrius is a character who’s personal characteristics are difficult to recognize except for his relation to the one whom he loves, or more principally, the one who is in love with him.
The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott. Fitzgerald really focusses on the theme of misguided values throughout the book. The three individuals that are faced with issues on their personal goals are, Daisy, Jordan, and Gatsby. Gatsby has a deep obsession for Daisy and he does anything to make her fall in love, when Daisy herself is falling in love with everything surrounding Gatsby other than him, himself, and it seems as if Jordan is oblivious to the world. Fitzgerald uses image patterns in this book to represent flaws, those image patterns can be broken down into, voice, driving and the green light to illustrate the theme of misguided values.
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.
Nick compares himself to a “casual watcher in the darkening streets” (Fitzgerald 35), reminding the reader that he is impersonal, and, “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (Fitzgerald 59). Although Nick persistently defends his character as a spectator, it’s clear Nick is desperate to demonstrate the outlook of events based on his point-of-view.
The main characters of each work are automatically associated with each other by their names, but they also share similar personalities and characteristics. Odysseus is a wily hero of the Trojan War who uses his deceptive...