A Separate Peace Gene And Finny's Friendship

Gene gains peace from guilt when he becomes self-aware, mature, and remorseful. The subsequent time that Finny injures his leg, Gene goes to see him and expresses sincere regret, showing his remorse. When visiting Finny, Gene confesses that what happened up on that tree was a rage of jealousy that had controlled him. Confessing to Finny helps Gene overcome the burden of guilt. Finny’s death causes Gene to become sad, however he was relieved that they were able fixed their friendship before it was too late. At Finny’s funeral Gene “did not cry” and “could not escape a feeling that this was [his] funeral”, showing that he lost a piece of him (Knowles 194). Gene feeling that

Throughout the story Finny thinks him and Gene are friends; when they are really enemies. In the novel Gene says, “what was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?” (Knowles 5). The narrator’s jealousy, starts to grow more towards the other character. The hate Gene has for Finny builds up and eventually leads to his death. Their relationship got more affected when Gene admitted to causing the accident, and caused Finny to never play sports again. When Gene admits to hurting Finny, it changes both of the characters, and their friendship was hanging by a

In A Separate Peace, the characters battle with their identity. Similar to the many other characters that struggle to be themselves, Gene tries to be other people. Given that Gene has a difficult time with his identity, he tries to be someone he is not: Gene tries to be Finny. Finny can be described as athletic, outgoing, and a risk taker, all things that Gene does not possess. Although Gene is far from Finny’s qualities he tries to duplicate them. Gene says “I decided to put on his clothes (Knowles 29).” When Gene puts on Finny’s clothes it starts his obsession of being Finny. The obsession Gene has continues, for example Finny told Gene that he wanted to one day become an Olympic athlete until he broke his leg. In response, Gene

The methods Finny use in order to cope with his fear distorts the way Gene perceives the conflicts surrounding him. A prime example of this is during a time where Finny is in denial of the war as well as Gene being guilty of hurting him. Gene recounts the impact Finny had on him and notices that:

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,

Gene’s envy and intimidation of Finny caused great internal turmoil with himself throughout the story. He went through and identity crisis because he was unsure of who he was and who he wanted to be. In the story, Gene said, “I went along, as I always did, with any new invention of Finny’s” (Knowles 117). He always went along with everything Finny proposed or did; this gave him little to no time to discover who he really was. This lack of personal discovery lead him to doubt who he was. This internal conflict within Gene also affected his personal actions. Before Finny’s fall, Gene said, “I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb” (Knowles

Gene contemplates his and Finny’s friendship many times in the book, but despite what Gene may have thought, Finny was a good friend to him. He always took Gene’s feelings into account, and through all that happened he had faith in Gene. But Gene never knew this,

“I wanted to see Phineas, and only Phineas. With him there was no conflict except between athletes… This was the only conflict he had ever believed in.” (page 152) When Gene returns from Leper’s house, all he wants to do is see Finny. Gene says that Finny never believed in any conflict, which alludes to when Gene admitted to making him fall out of the tree, and Finny refusing to believe him. Gene wants to forget about what happened, as the event is fresh in his mind after coming back from Leper’s. He still subconsciously trusts Finny to not bring up the subject of what happened at the tree.

In chapter 11 of A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, Gene is back from Leper’s and wants to see Finny. Gene sees that Finny is in a snowball fight and Gene joins in when Finny hits him with a snowball. Later that night Brinker asks about Leper, Gene decided to tell both Finny and Gene that Leper has gone crazy. Finny admits that there really is war going on if Leper is so affected by it that he has gone crazy. At 10:05 pm that night Brinker and some others want to take Finny and Gene somewhere. They are both confused since it is after hours. Brinker takes them to the Assembly Room where he has taken it upon himself to investigate what really happened in that tree the day of Finny’s accident. Finny and Gene do not want to be in this situation

“But I no longer needed this vivid false identity . . . I felt, a sense of my own real authority and worth, I had many new experiences and I was growing up “(156). Gene’s self-identity battle ends and he finds his real self. Gene’s developing maturity is also shown when he tells the truth about Leper. His growing resentment against having to mislead people helps Gene become a better person. When Brinker asks about Leper, Gene wants to lie and tell him he is fine but his resentment is stronger than him. Instead Gene comes out and tells the truth that Leper has gone crazy. By pushing Finny out of the tree, crippling him for life and watching him die; Gene kills a part of his own character, his essential purity. Throughout the whole novel Gene strives to be Finny, but by the end he forms a character of his own. Gene looks into his own heart and realizes the evil. “. . . it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart” (201). He grasps that the creation of personal problems creates wars. Gene comes to acknowledge Finny’s uniqueness and his idealism and greatly admires his view of the world. He allows Finny’s influence to change him and eliminates the self-ignorance. At Finny’s funeral Gene feels that he buries a part of himself, his innocence. “I could not escape a feeling

Gene was attempting to be top of his class academically, but he was continuously being distracted by Finny. Oneday Gene decided to ask Finny if he would be upset if Gene was top of their class. Finny responded by saying, “‘I’d kill myself out of jealous envy’” (Knowles 52). Although Phineas said that in a joking manner, it is clearly that he really would be jealous if Gene was top of their class. Finny loved to be first, and he didn’t like when people threatened his position. After pondering on Finny’s comment, Gene realized, that he may have, “deliberately set out to wreck [his] studies” (Knowles 53). Finny clearly had extreme envy of Gene for better academically. It is unhealthy for friends to be jealous of each other, especially when taken to that extreme. Finny was being unsupportive and selfish, just so that he could be better than Gene.

Gene seems like the leader of the “clan” of boys at Devon. Since he is the leader the other boys may pressure him to make things better. He may not even want to go. He may just go to remain as leader. Either way I don’t think he is doing it to be a good friend. I would not want to have a friend like Gene. He doesn’t seem honest or even a bit decent. But since Leper and Finny have no one else they are stuck with Gene. It is a very toxic relationship.

We can see that Gene grows and changes in the novel through his thoughts. Before Gene looks back to his years at Devon, he returns to the school fifteen years later and visits the tree. “Any one of them might have been the one I was looking for. Unbelievable that there were other trees which looked like it here.” (Knowles5). This shows that Gene’s perspective has changed because what was once “tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple beside the river,” (Knowles6), is now just a tree that blends in with the rest of them. Towards the end of the novel, Gene attends Finny’s funeral. “I could not escape the feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case.” (Knowles186). Gene thinks this because Finny being gone is also Gene

Gene even embodied Finny’s identity when he wanted to forget about himself. Because of this, when Finny died, Gene was shaken to his core. When describing how he reacted to Finny’s death, Gene states solemnly, “I did not cry then or ever about Finny. I did not even cry when I stood watching him being lowered into his family’s straight laced burial ground outside of Boston. I could not escape a feeling

Theme: There are multiple themes in A Separate Peace but one of the most important is friendship. Gene and Finny’s relationship appears very one sided in the novel. It can be seen when they are talking on the beach and Finny confesses to Gene that he is his best pal. Gene is going to say it back but a feeling holds him back from doing so. It is obvious that Phineas loves Gene more than Gene loves him because he admitted something that took a lot of courage on his part and Gene could not return the sentiment. Finny also relies heavily on Gene which could be the reason for him refusing to believe that he could have caused him to fall and break his leg. Because he is so dependent on him, Finny must believe that Gene loves him as much as he does.