A Separate Peace By John Knowles: Character Analysis

At the same time Finny is supportive of some of the decisions Gene makes to try to be more like him. One morning Gene misses Finny so much that he decides he is going to wear something that Finny would wear to become a part of him. While talking to Finny after his accident, Gene is told to keep playing sports in honor of Finny. Because he wants to be like so much like Finny, Gene is very excited to hear this. He becomes even more excited when Finny decides he is going to help Gene train to become an olympic athlete since it was Finny’s dream. Gene seems to only choose to do things if he has had the approval of Finny first. This is the case when he decides he is going into the draft, but changes his mind when he finds out Finny is

Gene Finds Peace “Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide...” (Emerson 370). In the novel, A Separate Peace Knowles tells us about a Gene’s past time at Devon’s High School. Gene is a smart, conformist, and jealous person. In A Separate Peace, Knowles describes how Gene envy and limitation of Finny affect him, how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect his relationship with Finny, and how Gene achieves peace. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him. One way he’s affect is when he hurts Finny, so now he has to play sports for him. In the novel Finny states “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play for me” (Knowles 85). Finny is telling Gene since he can not play sports, Gene going to have to play them for him. Making Gene change more and more into Finny.

He tries to get Gene to join him in activities such as the Suicide Society. He even doubts their friendship and wonders if that is a way for him to become better. Gene begins to think that Finny doesn’t want him to succeed because Finny isn’t doing well in his studies. Finny is better than Gene at sports, so he thinks he’s trying to become better than him academically

In chapter 4 Gene has been thinking about the rivalry between him and finny. He was thinking about how he competes with him. "I found it. I found a single sustainable thought. The thought was you and finny are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone You did hate him for breaking the school swimming record but so what? He hated you for getting A's in every course but one last term. you would had an A in that except for him," (Knowles, P.53). Gene sees that even though finny is great at sports, gene beats him in the academic category. For gene Knowing that felt amazing, but the question is who is loyal to this so called friendship and who is

According to the novel, Finny and Gene are best friends. They would both go to places together and share a room at school. As Gene gain his knowledge, he becomes more conscious about his greed and desires for being successful at beating Finny for his athleticism and capability. He also surmised that Finny was keeping him from making good grades by stopping him from accomplishing his academic courses. Gene had came to a realization that he hated Finny and wanted to be better than him. It was all a misunderstanding because Finny never

Genes envy and imitation of Finny affect him. Finnys ability to talk his way out of trouble affected Gene’s feelings. According to Knowles,” he had gotten away with everything. I felt a sudden stab of disappointment “(28). This explains how Gene is discussing his disappointed feelings toward Finny.

The novel “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles is a story of friendship and conflict. John Knowles uses Gene’s envy to demonstrate that jealousy ruins friendships. This is shown multiple times, including fake friendships, internal conflict becoming physical, and all conflict resulting in the loss of trust of one another.

One thing that the book really shows the reviews about Finny is that he's super athletic he's gifted when it comes to sports greatness comes to him. In this quote routes that finny is naturally good gene said you always win in sports when you played a game you won. “Finny never permitted himself to realize that when you win they lost that would have destroyed the perfect beauty which was sport no thing bad ever happened to us boys they were the absolute good”.In the Book he says that he needs a Greek hero athlete always excelling in physical activities and always spirited. Gene starts to get a little jealous because when it comes to sports Finny excels all the time with ease but gene struggles to excel in sports.

Gene’s envy toward Finny spikes after he breaks the school’s swimming record even though he never practiced. Moreover, Finny tells Gene to keep the event a secret which leaves him in shock. This leads to his jealousy towards Finny being highly athletic. Furthermore, Gene then believes that it is Finny’s fault for causing him to fail his trigonometry test as Gene says, “then a second realization broke . . . Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies,” (Knowles 53) which also makes Gene realize that with Finny’s great athleticism and Gene’s academics, the two were even with rivalry on both sides.

As a young man, Gene would compare himself to his best friend Phineas all the time. Gene was very insecure about his inability to play sports. This leads Gene to become envious of Finny. His envy made him paranoid about Finny's motives as his friend. When Gene's focal point was his studies in order to become valedictorian, he thought Finny was "[trying to] deliberately set out to wreck [his] studies" (Knowles 71).

Instead of admitting it to himself that he is jealous of Finny, he finds ways to try and make what he does seem right. I think that this is Gene saying he knows that he can be self-destructive in his relationships. I think that he puts those thoughts in his head because he does not want to believe that Finny is better than him, even though that is what he thinks. This relates to the war because he is already used to there being bad things within the things that he loves. This foreshadows that he might not have the best at home

This irritated Gene and he told Finny that he needed to study to get a good grade on the test. Finny then got frustrated that Gene wouldn’t play and made fun of him for trying hard at being the smartest kid in their school. Gene looked over at Finny and could tell by the resentful look in his eyes that he has been jealous of him and wanted to try to be the best out of the two of them. Gene felt betrayed and deluded that his friend was only trying to make him work less just so he could be the better one. The change in feelings towards Finny would end up leading Gene down a dangerous path of anger, jealousy, and eventually

Friendships can be positive or negative. A good friend is supportive, kind and trustworthy. However, a negative friendship can cause a bad influence and habits. Finny and Gene have many qualities that combine to create a terrible friendship. They are not supportive of each others decisions and are very envious of the others abilities. Throughout the novel, Gene’s friendship with Finny becomes unhealthy and detrimental.

Gene’s envy over Finny’s pure and unique mindset leads him to believe he is trying to sabotage him. In his paranoia, Gene thinks to himself, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies… That’s why he, the great athlete, would be way ahead of me” (Knowles 53). Gene is jealous cannot cope with Finny’s spiritual and physical superiority. As a result, he feels he has to excel academically to “get even” to feel like he can compete with him and be on his level.

Friendship is one of the most important relationships that people form in all of their lives. Children build bonds when they are young and use those skills to continue fulfilling friendships for the rest of their lives. Throughout A Separate Peace, John Knowles displays the good things about close friendships but also the hardships that often occur. Gene and Finny are two boys that attend Devon school. Which is a school that closely reflects the one that Knowles attended while he was growing up. Both Gene and Finny emotionally grow despite their opposite personalities, and they go through several situations that force them to consider the value of their friendship. Through their time at the school, Knowles reveals Gene’s and Finny’s