A Separate Peace Friendship Analysis

Gene was jealous of Finny throughout the whole book because Finny was more athletically inclined then him, and Finny was able to do basically whatever he wanted to.¨ 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¨(8). This lead Gene to want to be better than Finny, by being first in the class. One night while Gene was studying Finny interrupted him, as he wanted to go jump out of the tree. After a little argument Gene eventually went with Finny to the tree, but he was still kind of angry. This lead Finny to jounce the tree limb. ¨Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud¨(28). Because of this fall, Finny completely shattered his leg. He may have been able to walk again, but he would never play sports again. Because of Gene's jealousy toward Finny he decided to make a rash move, which cost his friend their

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

In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the protagonist Gene Forrester constantly battles within himself to find the true emotion towards his friend Phineas and to find out who he really is. Gene and Phineas formed an illusion of companionship, but there was always a silent rivalry between them in Gene’s mind. In the beginning, Gene thought his feeling towards Phineas was completely normal and it will go away in time. However, as the time went on and Gene matured he found out that his feeling was much more than little jealousy but it has turned into hate. Gene Forrester develops into a mature adult when he finally accepts his feeling and faces reality.

In the novel A Separate Peace, the two main characters, Phineas and Gene, are very different. Gene, a sarcastic 16 year-old from Georgia, must work hard for everything he does such as academics and athletics. He envies Phineas’s athletic ability because all sports come naturally to him. Gene is a rule follower and tends to back out of things. He isn’t very trustworthy and tends to be very envious of other students such as Finny. He has a terrible temper and no self-control. He is a solid student who succeeds because of his discipline, obedience and traditional thinking. While he isn’t a straight A student he is still running for valedictorian. He loves the satisfaction of the grades but isn’t excited to learn. Gene is also a pretty good athlete

He decides to train for the Olympics(Finny's wish). This shows Gene is growing as a person, and is becoming a more caring person. “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,” and I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas” (Knowles, 85). To repay Finny for his help with the sports, Gene takes the time to tutor

According to the novel, “Gene emulates Phineas: he joins him in climbing the tree and jumping into the river, being—for dime, and taking a forbidden trip to the beach” (Alton). Gene just does everything Finny tells him. Such as when Finny told Gene to jump from the tree, and Gene went ahead and jumped. Gene changes more and more like Finny. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect his relationship with Finny. One way his relationship is affected is when his feelings led to him pushing Finny of out of the tree. In the novel Gene states “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, then my knees bent, I bounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swig his head around…” (Knowles 60). Gene had so much jealous built up that he ended up pushing Finny out of the tree. This causing Finny to break his leg for the first time. Another way the relationship is affected is when Gene thought Finny was trying to mess up is studies. Gene states, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies” (Knowles

In general, everyone has been in denial about something in their lives. Sometimes, this denial turns into an internal war, as one cannot determine whether or not they are for or against something. In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene faces this problem, as at certain moments, Gene begins to realize that he is starting to feel hate and envy towards Phineas. However, he is unable to say, as he is also his best friend. During the course of the novel, Gene Forrester’s denial as to whether or not he likes Finny takes over him and causes him to do things that he never thought that he would do.

Friendships are like those fragile glass ornaments that come out for Christmas. They’re beautiful, until someone does something to damage it. Gene and Finny’s friendship is the same. Its great, until Gene’s mind comes along to ruin it. His jealousy gets in the way of him being able to appreciate Finny’s friendliness towards him.

The friendship between Gene and Phineas is probably the most important theme throughout the novel. The boys’ friendship at the beginning of the story is strong, but as the story goes on and Gene’s jealousy towards Finny grows their friendship becomes weaker and weaker. They have always loved friendly competition, but when Finny starts to gain popularity and beat records, their competitiveness becomes not so friendly. Gene feels that their friendship is not equal and that Finny is better than him which causes complications. Once Finny breaks his leg he is no longer able to play sports, so he teaches Gene how to play in order to live through him in a way. After Finny breaks his leg he tells Gene, “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,” and I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas” (Knowles 43). Because Gene is jealous and wants to be more like Finny he goes along with it in hopes of gaining popularity and being an equal with Finny. Through this the boys become codependent of one another because Gene is trying to be like Finny, and Finny wants Gene to be like him since he can't participate in what he loves

In many quotes throughout the book, “A Separate Piece” by John Knowles, you can infer that Gene is envious especially towards Phineas. Gene begins at Devon School with Finny, for many weeks Finny begins to excel at a lot and win any argument, leaving Gene feeling jealous and angry toward him. Gene begins to think that Finny is distracting him from his schoolwork on purpose, which makes him even angrier. Gene then causes Finny to fall out of a tree because of a blind impulse.

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.

Throughout the book, we see that Phineas is an athletic boy who isn’t that much into school, and we see that Gene is the opposite of Phineas, and somehow, they are best friends. Their relationship is an example of opposites attract. Phineas is very athletic, humble, kind, and confident. Gene is more of an introvert who is not good at sports, and has no communication skills. Throughout the book, we see Gene’s admiration and jealousy for Phineas is huge, and sometimes gets out of hand. Gene finds out if he wants to find out his individual identity, he has to destroy Phineas. Because of the accident, A Separate Peace tells us that when people try to find their true identity, they create enemies who are really true friends.

Secondly, the theme of friendship is displayed in A Separate Peace when Gene’s love-hate relationship with Phineas is affected after he sees Phineas in the hospital. The realization of Phineas’s true feelings of their friendship comes to light when he refuses to accuse or put any blame on Gene for his disability resulting in Gene’s guilt, admitting he, “thought we were competitors.” (Knowles 63). When Gene visits Phineas back in their hometown during their break, he gets on a, “familiar friendly level” feeling like, “pals trading stories”(Knowles 65). The use of an anaphora is implemented when Gene’s guilty conscious begins to affect him and his struggle to admit he pushed Phineas off the tree becomes distressing as he believes, “it wouldn’t

Everybody friendships start out with figuring out their differences. The book A Separate Peace by John Knowles he uses foreshadowing, flashback, and allusion to capture the foils of the best friends Gene and Finny and they are the total opposites, but somehow they make their friendships work out. Gene is the narrator and tells his story by coming back to the Devon school fifteen years later by having a flashback of the memories as told in the novel. To list a few of their opposites are that they have is their academics because Gene thinks he needs to study and follow every rule there is for achieving your goals and finishing school while Finny doesn't need to study because he thinks he will do better without studying. Breaking rules was never

Throughout the novel, Finny influences Gene’s identity in several ways. Firstly, when Gene calls Finny on the phone from Devon when Finny is hurt at home, Finny says, “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me”, then Gene exclaims, “a roaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become part of Phineas” (Knowles 85). This displays how Gene recognizes how much Finny is influencing his life, so much so that he wants to become a part of Finny, or take his spot in things, such as sports. Secondly, towards the beginning of the novel, Finny influences Gene by getting him to climb the tree. While up on the tree, Gene states, “What was I doing here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this?” (17). This quote displays that Gene notices a time when Finny modifies his identity, as he would never jump from the tree on his own, but because Finny is challenging that aspect of Gene