Character Analysis: A Separate Peace By John Knowles

In the beginnings the book Finny wrestles Finny to the ground after they climb a tree (My West Point stride was intolerable; his right foot flashed into the middle of my fast paced walk and I went pitching forward into the grass.-19) Stuff like this gets him and Finny in trouble. Finny can also be immature in what clothes he wears like when they have to go to the fancy brunch Finny decides to wear a pink shirt and a tie as a belt and knowingly that he looks like a fairy he wears this for what seems a while and is confronted by the history teacher about and claims its a protest against the war.Finny and Gene climb the red again but Gene almost falls and Finny grabs Gene and saves his life and then makes fun of the situation and says( We’ll form a suicide society, and the membership requirement is one jumps out of the tree-31). In order to jump off the tree you have to climb it and from reading the book the tree seems quite tall so if you fall while climbing you can get injured badly like how Finny shattered his leg or if you land awkwardly on the wrong spot you can be killed. Finny doesn’t take safety into account because he has people climb up this dangerous tree and then jump into a river and if they fall as can see with Finny they can shatter their leg or even worse kill themselves. At the end of the book when Finny hears the truth about Gene jounced the limb

Some of the blame for Finny's death is the schools fault. The school allowed Finny and Gene to basically do whatever they want during the summer. One day during the summer they just went to the beach ¨the beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely

Even though the accident is not his fault at all, he does not blame anyone but himself. Finny 's point of view on the whole situation is very grown up. Finny seems as though he will never grow up; his immaturity is shown through his habit of always coming up with strange things to do just for fun and his silly disbelieving ways of the war 's existence: “"But there 's isn 't going to any Olympics in '44. That 's only a couple of years away. The war-" "Leave your fantasy life out of this. We 're grooming you for the Olympics, pal, in 1944." (Knowles 117).” Inside he is suffering with the hurt and anger of being denied from the one thing that he wants to do the most: fight in the war.They have to face adulthood, and in order to do that, they have to become adults. This is an excellent example of how the war suddenly makes the boys grow up into men.

Education is not really one of Finny’s favorite things, he is more like the outgoing friend of the group. In the novel, “A Separate Peace”, Gene has a thought about Finny and his education. The quote says “If I was head of the class on Graduation Day and made a speech and won the Ne Plus Ultra Scholastic Achievement Citation, the we would have came out on top…”(Knowles, 52). If you think about it, Finny could be head of the class and graduate and win the prizes if he would put a little

In today’s age teenage school boys are the farthest from innocent. In “A Separate Peace” Finny is portrayed as a slick, cunning, smart boy who tends to get whatever he wants. Teachers and students alike seem to fall at his feet and indulge in his little games. He’s proven several times in the story that he knows how to get people to do as he wants. Finny smiles and jokes his way through any sort of serious situation and he always seems to come out on top as he plays everyone around him like fine tuned instrument. In this novel, Finny is a magnetic, charismatic character whom people cannot help liking, but he is also manipulative, immature, and self centered. He is not nearly as innocent as he seems. Being all those thing doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person or even an evil person. Finny could very well think he is doing the right thing by ‘helping’ Gene out by pushing him to

Once Gene told Finny that he purposefully jumped in the tree to make Finny fall, Finny had to realize that the perennial friendship he believed he had with Gene, may have been built on lies. In the book, Finny’s first expression after being told that Gene caused his fall was actually a facial expression; “he looked older than I had ever seen him” (Knowles 99). This shows that as Finny heard his best friend admit to wanting to hurt him, the only person he had put his full trust in. Even though we don’t get to see what Finny is actually thinking, it is safe to infer Finny felt naive, and was completely shattered. Finny’s trust in Gene and throughout the rest of the novel, their friendship is never restores until the last few pages. Towards the end of the book, Finny completely loses his innocence when he finally admits that the war was actually occurring. In the book, once he sees Leper hiding and decides that he is crazy due to the war. Finny then says, “‘then I knew there was a real war on’” (Knowles 241). Throughout the novel, Finny stood very firmly on his belief that the war was fake -- that no one could hate each other that much -- but once he decided to admit that it was real, it was like his hope had gone

The reason this change in the novelhappens is because Finny has made it a point to prove to Gene that the war was not real. Thereader can infer from this behavior that Finny only wanted to keep Gene around him so he wouldnot be lonely. However as the story continues the reader figures out that this inference was truealong with another. This other hidden truth was that Finny was only pushing the war awaybecause he was not able to be apart of the war. After the reader finds this out the minds shit asthey find out that the last bit of innocence thatFinny had was that him and Gene could not be friends if he had enlisted.The reader notices that up until the point that Finny broke his leg that he was this perfectimage in people's eyes. However when he does break his leg and walks around the school incrutches those people have a different view on him. This change in perspective notifies thereader in that loss of innocence in Finny and at

Finny wouldn’t make a capable soldier due to his purity and innocence. In addition, Finny does not contain an ounce of malice inside of himself. He simply could not kill another human being. Throughout the course of the novel, all Finny ever wanted was fun, which for him was not found in winning or losing, but in playing. Finny’s main belief was “everyone always won at sports,” (page 27). However, war is based off winning and losing. You simply cannot have that mindset during a battle. Gene realizes, Finny lacks desire and comprehension, to do true evil. The closest Finny has ever gotten is in athletics, and even there he constantly switches teams to keep the “competition” going. ”You’d make a mess, a terrible mess, Finny, out of the war” (page 182). Even during a snowball fight Finny switches sides. According to Gene, Finny would not know what side to fight for.

Is competition allowed in a friendship? Or should two friends be just friends or just rivals. According to many studies, competition is healthy for a friendship. It allows for a group of friends to push each other and get better. But what if there was a friend who took the competition to heart and viewed the friendship more like a rivalry? In John Knowles, A Separate Peace, the protagonist, Gene Forrester, and his best friend, Finny, grow from a great friendship to a full out rivalry. Can a friendship be a rivalry?

Near the end of the novel, Brinker organizes a mock trial in which Gene is accused of causing Finny’s fall. Throughout the trial, Finny adamantly denies Gene’s involvement, claiming Gene was not even on the tree when he fell. However, the arrival of Leper, a fellow classmate, causes him to doubt himself. Leper is an innocent schoolboy who joins the military but deserts after going insane. He returns to Devon Academy, where he is invited by Brinker to shed light upon the incident, which he does by revealing Gene’s involvement in Finny’s fall. Finny, unable to handle the truth, emotionally retreats from the room as he shouts “You get the rest of the facts Brinker….you collect every f---ing fact there is in the world!” (Knowles 177). Finny reacts emotionally to the truth because accepting it would mean accepting his closest companion is no longer to be trusted. This is particularly scarring for Finny because after his theory about the war is shattered, he becomes dependent on Gene’s loyalty and candor: “Christ, I’ve got to believe you, at least. I know you better than anybody” (Knowles 163). In both cases, Finny’s innocent beliefs are shattered by Leper, who illuminates the reality of the world’s evils and consequently destroys Finny’s blissful ignorance. Leper symbolizes the unadulterated truth; he is unencumbered

In the novel, “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, the seasons develop actions and characters in the story. The story takes place at an all-boys boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II based off of the author’s previous experiences at a boarding school. The two main characters, Finny and Gene, experience character development alongside different seasons. In written works, seasons are commonly used to symbolically represent a change in the character’s personalities. The nature or setting of the story is used to specifically evolve Finny and Gene in seasons such as the summer, autumn, and winter. Each season change also generates an entirely different mood.

Since Finny could no longer play sports he wanted to live his dreams through Finny.He dream was to go to the Olympics. I think that Gene went along with it because he felt bad for the whole situation. He already felt guilty so this was a way for

Finny breaking his leg caused him to change. In the beginning of the book, Fin always wanted to be active and even created a new game called blitzball, but he did not care about his academics. “In addition to my own work, I was dividing my time between tutoring Finny in studies and being tutored by him in sports.” (P. 63) Before the accident, Finny didn’t worry about studying and school, he just wanted to play sports, and get his best friend to play sports, so the boys tutored each other. After the accident, Finny became someone who tried to hide the truth with excuses to make himself feel better. “I’ll hate it everywhere if I’m not in this war! Why do you think I kept saying there wasn’t any war all winter?” (P. 190) Fin said the war wasn’t

First, Gene admits to being guilty of shaking a tree in order to injure Finny when he visits him at his home, making Finny livid, and temporarily tearing them apart. Gene is envious of Finny’s athletic ability and bravery. One way Finny shows his bravery is by jumping off a tree for fun. Gene is greatly threatened by the bravery, so he decides to strip it from Finny by shaking the tree one day, making him fall and suffer an injury. Consequently, he instantly regrets his decision, but he realizes that the damage is done. Remorsefully, he wants to apologize for his terrible choice, but when he tries to talk about the situation and confess, Finny is in denial and starts to get angry. Finny’s denial is evident when he says “‘I don’t know anything. Go away. I’m tired and you make me sick. Go away’” (Knowles 70). This dialogue shows how Finny did not believe that Gene caused the incident even after the confession. This is because he believes that Gene would not do such an action. The confession tears Finny apart to the point that he lashes out at Gene and wants him to leave his house. If Gene did not commit the notorious action, Finny would not have to feel the pain physically from the injury, and mentally from the idea that Gene would hurt him, and the boys could have a stronger friendship.

Finny is out of school for a while and Gene admits that he caused this on purpose and Finny is distraught about