A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, features just as many themes as it does characters. These themes range from how warfare affects daily life to envy and jealousy. However, friendship is the theme that occurs the most throughout the book. Whether while Gene helps Finny get through the ordeal of his broken leg or when Gene broke said leg, friendship remains consistent. In contrast, Gene and Finny’s friendship has not remained consistent, often fluctuating immensely as the plot progresses. Friendship is arguably one of the most important themes in A Separate Peace and is present in Gene and Finny’s friendship through their trust, competition, and support for each other.
Out of the many foundations that uphold Gene and Finny’s friendship, trust
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The rivalry that exists in Gene’s imagination between Gene and Finny leads to several incidents and events that affect their friendship throughout the novel. This rivalry between the two best friends would eventually result in Gene shaking the tree, making Finny lose his balance and breaking his leg. The shattered leg ends Finny’s participation in sports and causes hostility between Gene and Finny from then on. However, the competition between Gene and Finny also caused them to grow closer as well. Finny becomes increasingly reliant on Gene and Gene thinks that they are equal after Finny breaks his leg. Overall, they seem to grow closer until they are confronted by Brinker and their classmates. While competition and rivalry almost break their friendship, it proves to be the glue that brings them back together as they support each …show more content…
Gene and Finny’s friendship was shown in their trust for each other, whether when Finny caught Gene from falling off of the tree or when Finny’s heart was broken by Gene’s betrayal. The friendship that existed between Gene in Finny is prevalent when Gene’s rivalry causes him to disable his best friend or when Finny made him strive to become a better person. Their support for each other is shown when Finny defends Gene and trains him to go to the Olympics. As seen, their friendship pushes both of them together and apart at the same time. Although one-sided most of the time, the theme of friendship between Gene and Finny lasted until the very
Before Gene and Finny went to perform a double jump off the tree, Gene again starts contemplating ways that Finny is jealous of him. Gene states, “The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. You did hate him for breaking 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 in that one except for him. Except for him” (Knowles 53) . Gene knew that he had an immense amount of jealousy towards Finny, so instead of trying to remove it, he comes up with a plethora of ideas to try and justify it. Gene thinks of these ideas right before he jounces the tree limb. Gene narrates, “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb(Knowles, 60). Gene’s differing feelings are expressed in a small gesture which demolishes Finny’s life. Seeing Finny fail briefly relieved Gene’s anger and jealousy. Gene says, “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 of this forgotten” (Knowles, 60). This is the first time that Gene jumps off the tree with complete confidence. The failure of his lethal rival allows Gene to behave as Finny, and ultimately become
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.
First, I believe that Gene and Finny were not sincerely friends throughout the novel due to their relationship being driven by competitiveness. Along with the competitive atmosphere came jealously, envy and enmity. Gene created a rivalry between him and Finny. Since Finny was
In A Separate Peace, Gene has to go to school during WWII. He finds a friend named Phineas to help him through all the struggles school can give you. Gene doesn’t understand until the end of the book that Phineas pushed him to do things that he never thought he could. Even though they had their struggles, they were friends until the end. This is almost like what we see in the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. In this book, Christopher's father was his best friends. He always made sure he was okay. When Christopher learned he was lied to about his mother and that his father killed Wellington, he stopped trusting everyone. In the end of the story, Christopher's father ended up being there for him and he regained all the trust that was lost between them. Both of these stories show how important friendship can
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...
My first point which I will talk about is about Finny's tragic fall and how Gene was the cause of it. My support from the story is Finny's desire to jump from the tree. Gene said that he was coming to join him but Finny reminded him about studying. Gene's thoughts on the matter were, "He had never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us, I couldn't stand this." My second support is Gene's actions leading to the accident. He took a step toward the trunk, put his knees and jounced the limb. Thus, Finny lost his balance and tumbled to the ground. My third support goes back to the scene of the accident after Gene watches Finny fall. And he thinks to himself, "It was the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make." More less, this is a sign of pride within Gene as he watches the good athlete, Finny fall out of the tree.
In the novel it says, “He had never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us” (Knowles 59). At this moment Gene realized that Finny was never really jealous of him, and was only trying to be a good friend. Also, when Gene returns to his school he mentions escaping from something. He says, “Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it” (Knowles 2). The “it” he is referring to is his jealousy and envy of Finny. At this moment he knew that he had fully and successfully achieved his separate peace.
The purpose of Knowles’ novel is to exaggerate the life of two young boys to the extreme in order to reveal the unfortunate things that can occur in a relationship when these themes are not taken seriously. As stated in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, "It (A Separate Peace) can be viewed, for example, as a tale of Original Sin, with the Devon School as an Eden enclosing the great Tree of Knowledge through which humankind falls far from innocence but is redeemed by the suffering of a totally innocent one. It may also be approached as a reworking of the classic tale of the need to accept the potential evil within everyone and thus make peace with one’s self." BIBLIOGRAPHY "A Separate Peace." Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Vol. 78, No. 1, pp.
The concept of man’s inhumanity to man is developed in John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace. The primary conflict in this novel centers on the main character, Gene, and his battling of jealousy, paranoia, and inability to understand his relationship with his best friend Phineas. Yet the larger battle of man’s inhumanity to man is portrayed by the backdrop of World War II.
After Finny breaks the schools swimming record he asks Gene not to tell anyone, which sparks this sentence in Gene narration. ”it made Finny seem too unusual for- not for friendship, but too unusual for rivalry,” (45). Despite the sound of this, it does not resolve Genes jealousy of Finny. This is before the problem even began and could possibly be the stem of it. Gene is baffled by the way Finny can do incredible things and not want to brag. This is the first time we see that Finny is not the villain of the story that Gene will later perceive him to be. After Finnys injury he can no longer play sports and since he cares about Gene so much He enlists his help.”Listen pal if I can’t play sports you’re going to play them for me” (85). Finny says this to Gene because he sees Gene as an extension of himself, which is evidenced throughout the book by Finny's constant affection toward Gene. Gene begins to see things the same way as Finny which is why at the end of the book, Gene says that he didn’t cry at Finny’s funeral because he felt like it was also his own. Gene is constantly hurting Finny, but Finny cares about Gene too much to just let him
Although Gene hurt Finny, he never questions Gene's loyalty and friendship. Showing how true friends will always believe and trust each other. During a school
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.
When Finny got him out of his study-time to jump-off the tree he thought that he was being treacherous and sly to take a step-forward on their interior “battle”."What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?" (Knowles 67). Later on in the story they were lying down at the beach while dumping classes and Finny announced to Gene that he was his best friend and that he really liked him. At that point, Gene was beginning to realize that there was no war between them but yes an alliance, however his mind refused to accept this hypothesis. At the point that him and Finny were going to jump off the tree together he was still thinking that there was a war between them and the Finny was always better than him; for example, when Finny used the school uniform tie as a belt and he got away with it because in his mind finny was loved by all and he was hated. Moments after Finny “fell” from the tree he felt a satisfactory and relieving feeling; however, when these moments passes he deeply regretted his action and couldn’t make up for it. The next minutes or so he finally realized that there was no rivalry between the both of them but yes, love. "I threw my hip against his, catching him by surprise, and he was instantly down,
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
Gene jounces a limb of the tree he and Finny were standing on, causing Finny to fall and break his leg. Gene's jealousy of Finny's perfection causes him to have childish feelings of resentment and hatred. After Finny's leg was broken, Gene realized "that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between" (Knowles 51) him and Finny. Gene looked at himself and became conscious of what a terrible, self-absorbed friend he had been. Understanding there was no competition caused him to discard the majority of his feelings of jealousy. Getting rid of these feelings made him grow-up because he was no longer spending countless hours believing a childish game was being played between Finny and him. Gene began to understand more of Finny's goodness and love towards all, making him strive to be more like Finny.