In the novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the main character, Gene, transforms from a clueless individual, to one who understands events by the middle of the novel, when he starts to gain knowledge. By the end of the novel, Gene is a wise individual who has obtained his knowledge with age. 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...
Throughout life, there is always a person who one strives to beat, be better than or rise above. Little does each of them know that in the end the two actually make each other stronger. In John Knowles' novel, A Separate Peace (1959), he addresses just this. The novel, told from Gene Forrester's point of view, is based on a friendship and rivalry between him and his friend, Finny, during World War II. The two sixteen year olds attend Devon School, a private all boys' school, in New Hampshire. Finny, a very athletically talented youngster, continually but unintentionally causes Gene to feel inferior and insignificant, producing inevitable anger and jealousy inside Gene. During their summer session in 1942, the boys form a Super Suicide Society; anyone wanting to join the group is required to jump from a specific tree into the running river below. On one particular night, Finny tears the irritated Gene away from his studies for no reason other than to make a plunge from the tree. After arriving at the river, the two creep out on one of the tree's limbs. Balancing as if they were on a tightrope, Gene gives a quick little bounce to the limb, causing Finny to plummet to the riverbank below, severely breaking his leg. No one is aware of Gene's intentional bounce of the tree limb, encouraged by his resentment toward Finny. Gene's jealous action causes Finny's life to change forever. He feels terrible about what he did but cannot bring himself to tell Finny the truth. Faced with many great challenges, Gene struggles through the remainder of the novel trying to find himself and develop into his own person. The truth about the tree incident is finally revealed shortly after Finny bre...
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
a little.” (18) In this quote Gene is just saying that he envies his best
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
In the beginning to the middle of the book Gene lives through Finny. "Come on,' drawled Finny from below, stop standing there showing off.' Jump!'"(Knowles 9). Finny thought of an extremely adventurous idea. He decided that he wanted to jump out of a tree into the river below. Finny also wanted the other boys that were with him to jump out of the tree. After Finny jumped he attempted to persuade Gene to follow his lead and jump out of the tree. Gene, a very conservative individual, did not even dream of ever jumping out of the tree but Finny got his way. Gene climbed the tree and jumped into the river because Finny manipulated him to. "Studying! You know, books. Work. Examinations'" (Knowles 49). Finny has come to tell Gene that one of the boys named Leper has finally decided to jump out of the tree into the river. Gene finally explodes and starts screaming at Finny. Gene tells Finny that he needs to study for the French final and that he cannot be wasting his time with a silly game. At this moment in time, Finny finally realized that Gene actually has to study in order to get good grades. Finny always thought that school for Gene came just as easily as sports did for him. When Finny realizes this he tells Gene that he has to study. "Don't move from that desk. It's straight A's for you'"(Knowles 50). All of a sudden Gene became perplexed. He could not understand that Finny was actually telling him to stay home and study.
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.
Life changes in an instant. One day you’re just playing with your friends and the next your whole life is ending. The events that happen in a person’s life changes how they are as a person; it can either make them a better person or destroy them. In the novel The Separate Peace Finny grows as a person as the story progresses on, he faces tough situations that reveal he’s inner self.
Genes envy toward Finny indeed made him blind at the moment of the repercussions of what he was doing. Gene came to this blindness while he was up in the tree with Finny. He instinctively “bent [his] knees and [he] jounced the limb”(p 60) on which Finny was standing. Gene felt this urge because he was under the misconception that Finny was sabotaging him in school by making him skip class and not study. Finny's life of thrills and athletics was over after he fell and shattered his leg. Genes “harmless” envy caused him to place ruin upon his best friends
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.
After Gene attempts to confess his supposed intentions and Finny does not even remotely believe him, he thinks, “Could it be that he might even be right? Had I really and definitely and knowingly done it to him after all? I couldn’t remember I couldn’t think” (Knowles, 62). In this passage, Gene clearly shows that his confession is not the indubitable truth. This leads back to the type of person Gene is and the relationship Finny and him have. Gene is undoubtedly jealous of Finny and his athletic ability, but their friendship is very open and important to both of them. For example, Finny shows how he cherishes their friendship here, “ ‘It’s you, pal,’ Finny said to me at last, ‘just you and me.’ He and I started back across the fields, preceding the others like two seigneurs. We were the best of friends at that moment” (10). After the two of them are the only ones to jump out of the tree and into the river, Finny states their immediate relation to each other. Gene also automatically feels as if they share companionship in each other. They have a close friendship, and healthy competition is a component of all relationships. Gene did not have unquestionable belief that he deliberately jostled the limb so Finny would fall and shatter his
Gene sets himself up to become the inferior in his relationship with Finny because of his distrusting nature, but his yielding to Finny’s power motivates him to no longer be the lackey but rather the leader. In Gene’s quest for dominance, his initial steps are passive; he seeks to portray Finny as an antagonist and look better in comparison. Gene’s plan escalates as he takes away power from Finny physically. This proceeds into an obsession with him, convincing Gene that the only way to gain power is to become Finny. Knowles uses Gene’s escalation of his plot for power to warn readers to be wary of those seeking power. Through Gene, he advises the reader that individuals who seek power will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.
Gene is the narrator and protagonist of A Separate Peace. He suffers from all PDF the regular teenager ailments; self consciousness, jealousy, an identity crisis, and uncertainty. It is obvious from the start that Gene holds a great deal of admiration for Finny. Finny is a hero, an athlete, and a God in Genes eyes. Gene admires Finny, but naturally, Finny is also the competition. Finny gains what Gene lacks. Finny has the talents for sports, better conversation and actions and could easily be described as the perfect "Devon student". Gene May get better grades, but he goes unnoticed while Finny is able to corral the boys into any activity and talk even Gene himself into breaking the rules. Gene admits to jouncing the limb of the tree on that one summer day of 1942, and he even admits his crime to Finny. It is unknowing whether this crime was subconscious, a blind impulse or consciously malevolent. The source of our facts is Gene himself which makes it even more of a rocky situation. It could be that Gene over stricken with guilt jounced the branch, or that he has imagined these antagonist thoughts which were never really t...
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.
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...
Gene is a well-educated, athletic individual. He takes his school work seriously and keeps to himself, meaning he doesn’t favor standing out or being in the spotlight. He is a follower, especially when it comes to his best friend, Phineas. Throughout the book, he often compares himself to Phineas and talks about how perfect Finny is.