A Separate Peace: Fear, Ignorance, And Misunderstandings

Phineas was an outgoing and calm boy in the story; he was the perfect example of what peace looks like for boys. Before Gene and Finny jump out of the tree, Finny says to Gene, “

As the war got closer, Gene and Finny advanced through their school year with a lot of stress and complex decisions. One tough decision Gene had to make was to enlist or wait to be drafted. Gene’s excuse for not enlisting was Finny. Gene felt an obligation towards Finny because he caused the accident. The accident made Gene feel as if he had became a part of Phineas. “I lost

Throughout the book both characters realize they need each other more than they think. The more Gene justifies his feelings toward Phineas, the more he is ashamed of his actions. Gene is jealous that Finny is able to get away with anything and everything: “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn't help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little.” (Knowles, 25). Gene’s envies Finny’s accepted rebellious character but is unable to tell him. Afterwards, Gene, towards the middle of the book, feels his need for Finny to get caught, almost as if he is against him: “This time he wasn't going to get away with it. I could feel myself becoming unexpectedly excited at that.” (27). Slowly Gene turns his jealousy for Finny to hatred creating the downfall of their relationship. At Devon Finny is known for his great athleticism and his ability to win at everything, ending up as first every time: "You always win at sports.” (35).Gene feels more jealousy towards finny especially when Finny breaks the swimming record without training, not only showing he can win but he can do it without breaking a sweat. Finny’s athletic ability reaches Gene’s mind and his anger builds up adding more weight to the bridge: “Was he trying to impress me or something? Not tell anybody? When he had broken a school record

First, Phineas is a character who shows his emotions and states them to others. As Gene narrating states that, “Exposing a sincere emotion nakedly like that at the Devon School was the next thing to suicide,”(40). This quote shows two positive character traits that most people believe are strong traits to have. The quote shows that Phineas has immense confidence in being able to show his emotions because without confidence a person would never say such a bold statement in a society like Devon that frowns upon it. This same quote also shows that Finny has courage. This is displayed in the fact that it takes a great deal of courage to say such a statement that shows emotions no matter who it is stated to. Another characteristic that Finny displays is a less positive one. As stated in the previous paragraph in the quote about Gene studying, Finny does not realize that people actually put effort into doing their best at something. Everything comes naturally for Phineas and therefore he is unable to try to better himself in society because he has not had to. This lack of effort is not a positive part of Phineas’s overall character. Lastly, Finny’s athletic talent is a large positive trait in his character. As stated by Brinker in the later chapters, “You had better balance than anyone in the school”(161). This quotation from Brinker shows off just one aspect of Finny’s overall athletic

As you can see, Gene had much reason to push Finny out of the tree. It was from jealousy from Finny's athleticism, his popularity, and his ability to talk his way out of almost anything. Only Gene knew that Finny was the only person at the school that could accomplish so many things, and Gene did not want to deal with Phineas

I think that when Gene lies about claiming to be taller than Finny (p.16) is when he begins to feel a small amount of envy. In fact, later on page 18, Gene talks about the way Finny walks gracefully with each step. Furthermore, Gene talks about how Devon has never had a student who combined a calm ignorance for the rules with an urge to be good and who seemed to love the school truly and deeply. This, to me, shows how Finny gets out of trouble easily, besides being charismatic, a gifted athlete, etc. For instance on page 25, Gene states,“I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn't help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little.” He says that when Finny decides to wear pink to celebrate the first bombing and then later reveals his tie being worn as a belt to further push the discussion at afternoon tea. Despite Gene stating that there is nothing wrong with a little envy, he then says, “This time he wasn't going to get away with it. I could feel myself becoming unexpectedly excited at that” following the ‘belt-tie’ reveal. Soon after Finny, unsurprisingly, gets away with it again, and Gene says that he felt a stab of disappointment. However, Gene thinks to himself that Finny is a extraordinary person for being able to get away with everything and how he is glad to be his friend. Yet,

At the start, Gene is instantly jealousy of Finny, creating a fake friendship that is fueled by competition. This is shown when he wants to do something so he is good at, so he “was becoming the best student in the school: Phineas was without question the best athlete, so in that way we were even” (Knowles 55). This proves that their friendship is fueled by competition because it shows that Gene always wants to be even. This

He is never satisfied with himself. Gene hangs pictures on his wall “...of plantation mansions, moss-hung trees by moonlight, lazy roads winding dustily past the cabins of the Negroes” (156) to give the impression that he is a southern aristocrat which was “...a barefaced lie about [his] background…” (156). He also very jealous of Finny and feels that he wants to be like him. This is evident when he decides to put of Finny’s cordovan shoes, pants, and pink shirt. When Gene looked in the mirror, he felt like he became Finny. It made him feel good about himself because he was finally the person he was yearning to be but in the morning he was faced with the reality that he caused Finny to fall out of the tree. Gene usually feels like an ant, a humble nothing, but when he “transformed” into Phineas he feels less like an ant. He feels as superior as he sees Finny. He rose above his ant-like feelings in this moment. Gene is the cause of his low self-esteem because he feels the need to compare himself to Phineas. When Gene realizes that he is a very different person from Phineas it makes him feel lower. Phineas is a 16 year old athlete with

Burch, Kaylie Mrs. Adcock English 3 Hour 1 17 April 2024 His Separate Peace In the book A Separate Peace, near the end of chapter 9, after finishing a decathlon, Gene states that “It was not the cider which made me surpass myself, it was this.liberation.escape.this afternoon of momentary.special and separate peace”(Knowles 136, 137). John Knowles in A Separate Peace, demonstrates that a “separate peace” means the inner peace of oneself. To begin with, the “separate peace” that Gene mentions is a child-like peace they have by simply being “children”. Gene and the other students do not have to worry about the war and the casualties of it; “...but of his own inner joy at life for a moment as it should be, as it was meant to be in his nature,...recaptured that magic gift for existing primarily in space,...

After the realization of the person he truly is Gene confronts with his problems, faces reality, and deals with the future. He learns a lot about life and relationships when he finds about his true self. He learns that he must truly express his feelings and communicate instead of keeping all the feelings inside as he had always done with Phineas. Also he learns to listen to himself not others around him if he wants a true advice. After a while, he faced reality and acknowledged the fact that he was not as great was Phineas but they were two different individuals and they were unique in different ways. Gene accepted the guilt for Phineas’ difficulties after his accident and decided he must he must help him as a punishment and act of repentance for what his deed. He does this by giving part of himself to Phineas as we see with the case of the sports

Finny did a lot of risky things, that most people would not be able to pull off, but somehow he always manages to slip away with no punishment. Unknowingly, Finny went to a party, the headmaster was also attending it. As usual, Finny was out of dress code, wearing a neon shirt and their school tie as a belt. Somehow he talked himself out of trouble. Gene says “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying him that a little (Knowles 9).” Finny continued testing his luck, with skipping chapel and classes, and test, and meetings. In the article "A Separate Peace: The Fall from Innocence" James Ellis writes “Incapable of the spiritual purity of Phineas, Gene finds himself jealous of Finny's ability to flout Devon rules.” All of this grew on Gene and started to make him very jealous of something he did not have. Trying the ultimate dare, Finny decided to go to the beach, Gene says “The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely out of all bounds. Going there risked expulsion (Knowles 20).” Finny went through with his plan and spent a night at the beach, and received no punishments or disciplinary actions. As Gene was struggling with his identity, he saw that Finny could do things he could not. All those things made Gene jealous and gave him something to focus on, other than solving his identity

Finally, though, Gene does confess, saying that shaking the limb that caused Finny to fall wasn’t a premeditated act. Of course, Gene, himself, doesn’t quite believe that his own confession is completely truthful; nevertheless, Finny does accept Gene’s words as honest, further proving that Phineas is the better person. Finny later dies of complications during an operation to repair his leg, and Gene is left knowing that Finny was truly good and that he, himself, is a bad person. Therefore, for Gene, Phineas’ death symbolizes the loss of innocence by completing his recognition of the presence of evil in the world because he resolves that, indeed, he himself is capable of perpetrating that

Normally when you think of friends, you do not associate them with fear. It seems like Knowles associated fear with Gene's friends. After purposely jostling the tree branch to injure Phineas, Gene did not want to immediately tell Phineas what had actually happened. Gene said that his fear of jumping off the tree branch was forgotten after this event. Phineas did not know if he had fallen on his own or if he had been pushed by Gene. Gene was understandably worried about Finny's reaction to this conversation, so he put the conversation off for as long as he could. He also did not completely trust Phineas. Even though they were supposedly friends, Gene thought that Finny was secretly one of his rivals. Gene said, "The way I believed that you're-my-best-friend blabber" (Knowles 53). Finally, Gene showed that he was fearful of his friends toward the ending of A Separate Peace. When Brinker decided that there must be a trial to determine what had happened to Phineas, Gene fretted about what his fellow students might discover about him. Brinker said, "What I mean is it wouldn't do you any harm, you know, if everything about Finny's accident was cleared up and forgotten" (Knowles 160). He did not want them to find out about his role in Finny's injury. After Phineas injured his leg rushing down the steps of the Assembly Hall, Gene seemed to have a sense of fear until Finny died. Phineas never seemed to fear Gene, even after he had found out about Gene's role in his injury.

Although Phineas clearly had a negative relationship with Gene, some people argue that he was an acceptable friend because he was able to forgive Gene for making Phineas fall off the limb. When Gene visited Finny in the hospital after he learned that Gene jounced the limb, at first, Finny felt betrayed, however, after he saw the guilt on Gene’s face, he realized that, “it was just some kind of impulse decision… [Gene] didn’t know what [he] was doing” (Knowles 191). Then Finny knew that he didn’t do it because Gene despised him, he jolted the branch because he had no time to think about what he was

We know Gene was very jealous over Finny, but he was also extremely selfish. Finny had everything going for him, athletics, academics, he could get out of anything, and he went with the flow. Gene didn’t have any of these traits. When Finny wanted Gene to come to the beach, he wanted to stay and study the whole time, instead of going and spending time with friends. Another thing is, Gene knew it was all his fault! “None of them ever accused me of being responsible for what had happened to Phineas, either because they could not believe it or else because they could not understand it. I would have talked about that, but they would not, and I would not talk about Phineas in any other way.” (Knowles, 12.14). Gene jounced the branch because he was immature. Obviously, we can see that Gene has a lot of immaturities I’m him. He acted very childishly throughout the whole novel and it shows when he does the things he did. Examples of shaking the branch can show how he’s immature, but it can be taken in different ways. Gene thought of other things like school over things like if two people are on a small branch it will shake. “If anyone had been suspicious of me, I might have developed some strength to defend myself.” (Knowles, 113) This quote highlights that Gene did in fact jounce the limb, and did not want anyone to become suspicious that he did it. This is extremely immature because he could have at least apologized for his previous