Someone once said that, “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” However, in a book set about 10 years before this quote came about, it worked the opposite way. A Separate Peace by John Knowles, is a coming-of-age novel set in 1957 during the time of World War II. Gene, the main character, attends a boys’ boarding school in New England called Devon. There he rooms with his friend Phineas, both whom are complete opposites. As drafting into the war becomes closer and closer and other pivotal events occur among the boys, Gene and Finny’s friendship begins to rip at the seams. Although it is not a major event, Gene and Finny’s trip to the beach provides a pivotal moment in Gene’s future psychological and moral …show more content…
As they change and develop throughout the book, the meaning of the work as a whole changes with it. Due to one event that occurs while the boys are at the beach, the reader is offered a deeper glimpse into the thoughts and morals of Gene in relation to Finny. While at the beach, Finny tells Gene that he is his “best pal” and Gene thinks to himself, “I should have told him then that he was my best friend also and rounded off what he had said. I started to; I nearly did. But something help me back. Perhaps I stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.” (Knowles 48) Before the boys trip to the beach, the reader didn’t know much about Finny in a deeper emotional way. However, after he opens up to Finny about their relationship the story changes direction. As Gene put it, expressing as much emotion as Finny did is considered social suicide at Devon. In other words, it can be compared to Finny telling Gene that he “loved” him. Before, Gene never really thought of Finny in a deeper sense besides a friend from school. Once Finny tells Gene that he is his “best pal”, Gene’s thoughts towards Finny changes. However, as seen further into the book, this didn’t transform Finny into Gene’s best
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...
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 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
In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, characters Gene and Phineas begin their journeys to adulthood in a war torn environment. The dynamic formed between a world full of struggle and the crucial age of development in high school proves to be an excellent setting to examine the abilities of both Gene and Phineas to “come of age.” Being a Bildungsroman, the theme of coping with war and death is highlighted via the imagery that surrounds both Gene’s epiphany moment at the marble stairs, and its introduction at the beginning of the novel. Additionally, Knowles employs a flashback to set a nostalgic and somewhat reflective mood, which further extends this meaning. In Knowles’ “coming of age” novel A Separate Peace, the use of imagery surrounding the marble stairs, and a reminiscent flashback aid Gene is discovering that war and death can never be understood.
In John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace, the theme of loss of innocence is skillfully developed through setting, character, and symbols. This story simply details a young man's entering the adult world as all children do. Everyone suffers loss of innocence.
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
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.
Gene feels both love and hate for his best friend, Phineas, worshipping and resenting Phineas’s athletic and moral superiorities. Gene simply cannot handle the fact that Finny is so perfect. As he puts it, "Phineas could get away with anything” (Knowles 18). Gene then creates an internal rivalry with Finny, convincing himself that Finny is deliberately attempting to ruin his schoolwork. Internal conflict Gene deals with reaches its maximum when Finny proposes a “double jump”(19) from the tree.
Beyond the basic need for a sense of control, people are driven by their sense of identity, of who they are. Each person lives in their own universes, which are centered upon their feeling of self-purpose. There are multiple types of identities such as individual and group identities. Each person's identity is formed differently because of the unique experiences every individual encounters. The formation can be affected by many things such as their home environment, social concurrences, and physiological health. This story, A Separate Peace, exhibits interesting main characters which establish the frequent struggles of personal identity in adolescence.
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...
This quote shows their friendship. Gene didn’t understand why Finny talked him into things that he knew he shouldn't have done. Finny influenced Gene. This wasn't necessarily a good thing. Sometimes Finny helped Gene overcome his fears and help him become more social. But sometimes, it was a bad thing, like jumping from the tree. Much of his hesitation over jumping has less to do with a fear of dying than a fear of subordination, of blindly following Finny's desires
Insidiously and pervasively, Gene's original doubt creeps into his mind while at the beach, when Finny confesses that Gene is his best pal, yet Gene's hesitation holds him back, stating that “perhaps [he] was stopped by the level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth” (50). By pondering his motivations, Gene reveals that he truly does not believe that Finny considers him his best friend; Gene doubts Finny because he believes that hate forms the cornerstone of the relationship, which in turn leaves no room for love. Instead, Gene believes the confession of friendship serves the purpose of disillusioning him, that, as a conniver, Finny wants Gene to falsely trust him. Through a lack of communication, neither boy truly knows where they stand as a friendship based on trust and mutual affection fosters no home for envy, and yet Gene believes that Finny is his adversary. Finally, Gene ponders how he “might have asked, 'Who are you then?'” while realizing that Finny cares more about him than the fake rivalry; as Finny's personality seems to suddenly veer away from competitive, Gene feels he “was facing a total stranger” (50). Because Finny fears destroying the friendship by addressing its problems, he never empathizes with Gene and therefore does not see Gene's deluded misinterpretation of the association or the hatred that he fosters towards Phineas. Finny throws Gene off guard as he expressed his true feelings because, fed by doubt, Gene does not believe that Finny truly cares for him. Again, Gene's fears escape his mind as he exclaims “to drag me down too!” (57) when Finny talks of how he could have reached out to Gene in the moments before his fall. In his mind, Gene molds Phineas into a resentful person, so he automatically assumes the worst with Finny's intentions. Like an animal of prey, Gene retreats suddenly when
Every person feels rivalry or competition towards others at some point in their lives. This rivalry greatly affects our ability to understand others, and this eventually results in paranoia and hostility. It is a part of human nature, that people coldly drive ahead for their gain alone. Man's inhumanity towards man is a way for people to protect themselves from having pain inflicted on them by others, and achieving their goals and desires without the interference of others. This concept of man's inhumanity to man is developed in A Separate Peace as the primary conflict in the novel centres on the main character, Gene, and his inner-battles with feelings of jealousy, paranoia, and inability to understand his relationship with his best friend Phineas. Competition is further demonstrated by the occurrence of World War II. It is shown that, "There were few relationships among us (the students) at Devon not based on rivalry." (p. 37) It is this rivalry and competition between the boys at Devon that ripped their friendships apart.
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.
At the beginning of this novel Gene is very “Ignorant” of his heart. He constantly lies, not only to others but also to him self. Finny on the other hand is a very honest person, he never lies about anything to make him sound or feel better about himself. An example of this is the incident where the boys are asked their height and Genes says he is 5’9 and Finny corrects him by saying, “no your five foot eight and a half, the same as me.” This quote shows the honesty that Finny possesses and that Gene lacks. Gene refuses to admit that he isn’t tall while Finny openly admits it. Gene refuses to admit that he isn’t brave or that his motives for injuring Finny where entirely false. Gene cannot face what he is and this leads to tragedy.