Friendship and Tragedy in John Knowles' A Separate Peace Essay

Gene’s act of purposely causing Finny to fall out of the tree forces him to feel guilty and move on from his tendencies of jealousy and anger. After Finny’s fall, Gene discovers that Finny is so faithful as to not even accuse Gene of his actions. This causes Gene to begin to feel extreme guilt, thence

Gene Forrester is obsessed with how talented his roommate Phineas is, so he feels as if he has to become the best, and Phineas is considered the problem. One part in the novel is when Finny brought Gene to the beach the day before he had a test, and he thought Finny was trying to take away Gene’s only advantage, which was grades. According to Gene he states, “going there risked expulsion, and destroyed the studying I was going to do for an important test the next morning” (Knowles 23). Gene had known what the beach meant risk wise, but had still went in order to prove a point. Gene had thought Finny brought him there to get him off his game, and so he could fail his test. Another way Gene is affected is when he is made to jump from the tree because it messes with his mind, and he

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

Finny suggests that him and Gene should do a double jump, and right as they are about to jump, Gene bounces the limb and Finny falls. This is completely out of jealousy.

cold blast for the enemy. The winter lives to destroy the warmth of the summer

A Separate Peace by John Knowles is generally surrounded around war. War can build some people up and then bury others six feet under the ground. One theme of this book is that war can take a toll on people in every type of way possible.

Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him in many ways. Gene begins to lose his identity and start conforming to Finny. According to Knowles, “If I was head of the class and won that prize then we would be even…” (27). This quote explains how Gene follows finny by trying to be head of the class with him. Gene gets jealous of Finny being head of the class, so he tells him if he was head they would be even. When Finny introduce jumping off the tree to Gene at first he didn’t want to do it, but he wanted to be like Finny so he did it. In Knowles words, “what was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me? (5).

In A Separate Peace Gene and Finny’s friendship has to tackle a lot of obstacles. Gene and Finny were never exactly on the same page when it came to their friendship. Each of them was always assuming about the other. One of the book’s messages is that friendships take work, and if the friendship is worth it, then you should put in the work. In A Separate Peace, there are prevalent themes of friendship, how friends can help or hurt one another, and the sacrifices made for loved ones.

Over the summer session, Gene becomes close friends with Finny, an adventurous and amazingly trusting person. Gene, on the other hand, is a person who is more self-centered and doesn’t believe in Finny’s remarkable lack of hatred that makes him so unique. He believes that Finny is jealous of his academic prowess just like he is jealous of Finny’s superior athletic ability. Soon Gene realizes that his jealousy has blinded him to Finny’s authentic benevolence. Together they go on many adventures, and one day Finny and Gene decide to climb up a tree and jump into the river. Finny is balancing on a branch, ready to jump, when Gene accidently bounces the branch, causing Finny to fall. Finny broke his leg and was told that he would never be able to play sports again. Gene feels guilty about his role in the incident and tries to convince Finny that it was his fault. Finny laughs it off and doesn’t blame Gene for his role in the incident, showing more of his amiable personality. The summer session then ends, and both the boys go back to their homes. Gene visits Finny’s home, and he tells Finny that he bounced the branch on purpose. Finny doesn’t believe him and so Gene goes back to school. Brinker Hadley, a serious and responsible class politician, asks Gene if he wants to join the army with him. Gene agrees, but Finny’s return to the school causes his and Brinker’s idea to come to nothing.

“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.

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

He thinks Finny is trying to sabotage his studies so that he can be number one at that too! In reality, Finny is just trying to be a good friend. Gene is jealous of Finny’s athleticism, but he covers it up by the thought that all Finny wants to do is hurt him. In attempt to have some fun, Finny wants Gene and some other boys to jump from a tree limb into a river. This challenge is something that has never been done by a boy their age. After doing it once, Finny later convinces Gene to leave his studies and come do it again. While the boys are on the tree limb, Finny stumbles, falls into the river, and breaks his leg. Since Finny can no longer participate in any sporting events, he decides to train Gene for the 1944 Olympics. Gene eventually comes to the conclusion that “[Finny] had never been jealous of [him] for a second. Now [he] know[s] there was and never could have been any rivalry between [them]” (Knowles 78). Gene realizes that Finny wasn’t ever jealous of him, and that pushing Finny from the tree is a mistake that he will later regret. Finny dies after falling down the stairs and a failed surgery, so Gene begins to feel guilty for his actions. Gene had earlier decided to enlist in the war, and had told the other boys about it. After a lot of thinking, he eventually decides not to enlist in the war. Gene now begins to see the wrong doing he had participated in earlier,

Finny remains unaffected. When Gene begins yelling at Finny and telling him that he needs to study, Finny simply replies, “[d]on’t go. What the hell, it’s only a game” (57). Gene’s struggle with Finny is apparent within the first few pages of the novel. When Finny tries to persuade Gene to jump from “[t]he tree [which] was tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple beside the river.

Second, the injury puts Finny in the hospital, separating the two, which cause Gene to suffer depression. As Finny is badly wounded, he has to leave his boarding school, Devon, for a long period of time. He spends his time in the hospital, away from Gene. FurthermoreThis makes Gene regret his decision even more. Not only are Gene and Finny physically separated, but also emotionally separated. Essentially, Gene loses his

Finny's strong and solid character is again evident the night of the tree jumping in which he fell and broke his leg. Prior to the occurrence, Gene explodes when Finny automatically assumes Gene will be present at the Suicide Society tree "leap"(46). Finny's thinking that studies can just be abandoned at anytime infuriates Gene. Once Gene