Analysis of Phineas and Gene´s Friendship

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Competition and rivalry have the ability to make people shine and accomplish things they never thought possible, and the ability to bring a person’s dark side and get them to do terrible things. Phineas and Gene’s friendship is viewed very differently by each of them. Where Phineas sees Gene as his best friend Gene sees Phineas as a competitor. Gene sees him as someone trying to keep him from being successful in school. This warped view of their relationship is the cause of many of the eventual problems of the novel and arguably the death of Phineas.

Competition between peers makes people strive to try and be better than their opponents, and can be healthy or unhealthy depending on the competitors and their responses to the competition. Sometimes people see competition and face it head on like Gene when he is trying to become the “head of the class” (Knowles 24). It gets people to strive to be the best that they can be and whether they are successful or not they are better off than before. Even though Phineas was maimed it looked like he was going to end up getting a better educat...

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