Friendship and Hatred in A Seperate Peace
The line between friendship and hatred can sometimes be very unclear. Where exactly does one cross over this line? Could it possibly be when one discovers envy within himself for his friend, or is it when he begins to wish he is somewhere other then where he is? In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the friendship line between Finny and Gene is extremely unclear. What would cause ones best friend to jounce a tree limb in hopes the other would be harmed? To understand the relationship of Finny and Gene you must analyze their backgrounds.
The narrator of the novel, Gene Forrester, is a grown man who returns to the Devon School and recollects his years spent there. During the duration of the novel Gene is around 16 years old, he is thoughtful, intelligent, with a tendency to brood. Gene is extremely competitive with a sarcastic sense of humor. He often shuns overt displays of emotion, much like most students at Devon.
Gene’s “best friend” is Finny(Phineas). Finny is perfect in almost every way. He is honest, handsome, self confident, utterly disarming, extremely likable, as well as the best athlete in the entire school. Finny lives for moments of pure, unrestrained friendship, and his strong sense of loyalty extends to any group of which he is a member. He strives to be rebellious, making even the sternness proponents indulge in anarchical bliss with him.
Now understanding the identity of Gene and Finny you can begin to analyze their friendship. The two characters both have their own strong and week qualities. Gene is smart and an average athlete, while Finny is an excellent athlete but a below average student. In a situation such as this, one may begin to get jealous of the others gifts. In the novel Gene realizes that Finny is extremely envious of his gifts and tries many different ways to ruin Gene. For example Finny drags Gene to the coast, keeping him up all night, causing Gene to get a D on his trigonometry test the following morning. With Finny’s increased studying, Gene interprets this as an attempt to even things out. Finny harbors the same pettiness and duplicity as Gene does, and their friendship is shattered abruptly. Not just this particular friendship, but the idea of friendship itself dissolves for Gene, and he feels he can trust no one.
At first, Gene seems to be awed by Finny. Although his friend is more athletic than him, Gene is proud of the other boy's accomplishments. In fact, he is proud to be so close to a well-loved student. He considers himself lucky to be considered Finny's best friend. It becomes evident that jealously engrains itself into the friendship, however. Gene soon views not himself to be the lucky one, but Finny. He views all of Finny's good fortune to be his own bad luck. Whenever Finny gets out of trouble by being blatantly obvious, he thinks of it as himself being inadequate and not as good as his friend. This is shown at the luncheon both boys are invited to when Finny explains his inappropriate belt.
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.
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...
In 1942, a group of prep school boys take courses to allow them extra time to prepare for the armed forces. Gene, a conservative intellectual, befriends Finny, a free-spirited adventurer. The two form a club where they must dive from a high tree limb into the Devon River. He becomes anxious that his friend is taking time away from his studies. One evening, as Finny is about to jump from the tree limb, Gene bounces the branch and causes Finny to fall onto the bank, breaking his leg and leaving him unable to participate in athletic activities. Gene is riddled with guilt over what he has done and attempts to confess to Phineas the reasons for his accident; Finny refuses to believe Gene. Boys at the school conduct a mock investigation of Finny’s fall. He at last realizes Gene’s guilt, and in his anger and confusion he falls again, this time fatally.
...e up to. Gene feels he has an advantage over Finny, the enemy, because he feels like he knows how Finny’s mind works. To Gene Finny is a spy trying to infiltrate his schedule and destroy his goals of being the best student at Devon.
The bond Gene and Finny shares goes through much hardship throughout the course of the novel, and the fact that a draft is approaching puts more stress on their shoulders. The reoccurring theme of adulthood is constantly spamming the book, but it gives the reader a sense of what the world was like and how it will be. I like to analyze this story by comparing the two boys to seeds; they start out oblivious and weak, and then grow into a flower, or an adult. I also like to compare Gene and Finny to two support structures that are supporting each other. When Finny died, Gene sort of fell with him. However, years later, or at the beginning of the book, he found peace with himself for all he had done – a separate peace.
Knowles creates Gene as one who always is strictly trying to comply with the rules and regulations, always obeying his superiors; completely different then that of Finny’s personality. “Over your head? Pink! It makes you look like a fairy!” (909). Considering such, he envies Finny, because Finny can ‘get away with murder’ if he wanted to, and can stay out of trouble doing so. “Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying him…a little” (909). Knowles shows how much jealousy Gene had over Finny’ s ability to stay out of trouble, no matter what he did. “This time he wasn’t going to get away with it.” (909). He would rather be in accordance to the rules and be on his best behavior, than to be a rebel who goes against everything. Finny, on the other hand was more of a rebel. “I wonder what would happen if I looked like a fairy to everyone.” (909). Finny, more of a rebel, is very outgoing; he, however shows himself off as a perfect individual. One day at Devon, he gets into small dispute because he wore the school tie as a belt. This he frees himself from quickly, explaining, “It goes with the shirt and it all ties together…with what we’ve been talking about, this bombing in Central Europe.” (910). Complying with not only Devon’s rules and regulations, but also the standards of formal conduct, Gene has a strong instinct to follow order, guided by careful thought, which Knowles has implanted in him, throughout the text.
...riendship that is rare and uncommon. One would literally runaway for one another’s safety and do things for each other that might cost them their lives. You might tell your friend that you would take a bullet for them any day, but do you really mean it? Without one another, Jim probably would still not have had his freedom and Huck might have been back with his abusive father or possibly in jail. Friends keep you going after you’ve been kicked down, and help you get back up. Twain from beginning to end exhibits the pure relationship between Jim and Huck in contrast to Huck’s own pap. The love and trust are beyond family. What people perceive from the society is smashed into pieces. The inspiring and unbelievable relationship urges audience to make decision out morality instead of social value. The true bond can amazingly happens, even during an era of racism.
In the early pages of the novel, Finny confesses that Gene is his best friend. This is considered a courageous act as the students at Devon rarely show any emotion. And rather than coming back with similar affection, Gene holds back and says nothing. Gene simply cannot handle the fact that Finny is so compassionate, so athletic, so ingenuitive, so perfect. As he put it, "Phineas could get away with anything." (p. 18) In order to protect himself from accepting Finny's compassion and risking emotional suffering, Gene creates a silent rivalry with Finny, and convinced himself that Finny is deliberately attempting to ruin his schoolwork. Gene decides he and Finny are jealous of each other, and reduces their friendship to cold trickery and hostility. Gene becomes disgusted with himself after weeks of the silent rivalry. He finally discovers the truth, that Finny only wants the best for Gene, and had no hidden evil intentions. This creates a conflict for Gene as he is not able to deal with Finny's purity and his own dark emotions. On this very day Finny wants to jump off of the tree branch into the Devon river at the same time as Gene, a "double jump" (p. 51), he says, as a way of bonding. It was this decision, caused by Finny's affection for Gene and outgoing ways that resulted in drastic change for the rest of his life.
Gene Forrester is an average, studious, young man attending Devon school in New Hampshire during the second World War. His roommate at Devon, Phineas (otherwise known as Finny) sends Gene on an unexpected journey of self discovery. Finny represents man in his innocence, a kind of edenic2 Adam. He is very athletic, honest and trusting.
Friendship has magical powers it’s like a rainbow at the end of every storm.The story that was read is called The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian.This book is a novel by Sherman Alexie. In the book there were many characters, but the main ones are Arnold which they call Junior. Rowdy is Junior’s best friend that has problems throughout the book. Penelope is Junior’s love, you would say. The problems throughout the book is,one when Rowdy gets mad at Junior for switching schools. This school changes Junior in a good way. He is way happier, still has problems at home and everything, but way happier. There are many themes present in this book, The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian. One particular theme that is present throughout the story is that there is always hope for friendship.
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
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.
Love is a very powerful force which some believe has the capability to overpower hate. Within the play, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare displays various events in which the characters convey the message that love can conquer all. The characters in this play continue to forgive the ones they love, even under harsh circumstances. Additionally, Shakespeare effectively demonstrates how Romeo and Juliet’s love for one another overpowers significant emotional scenes within the play, including the feuding between their two families. Furthermore, by the end of the play the reader sees how love defeats the shock of death and how Romeo and Juliet’s love ends the ancient feud between the Capulets and Montagues. Using these three events, the reader sees Shakespeare’s message of how love can conquer all. In the desperate battle between love and hate, Shakespeare believes love to be the more powerful force in the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.