Innocence In A Separate Peace

Visiting his school, Devon, fifteen years later, Gene realizes that during the time he was studying there fear surrounded them, and he had not noticed. However, with his return Gene realizes that the fear “had surrounded and filled those days” and now when revisiting he was “unfamiliar with the absence of fear”, with leaving Devon he escapes feeling of fear (Knowles 10). He did not fear those days that he spent there and looks at them as lessons that help him grow. No longer feeling the hatred he had once felt, Gene gains peace from within him, and as he loses his hatred he is able to accept the real, adult, world. With the hatred gone, Gene also loses the fury he had at people and at life. Getting rid of those feelings, that were once so normal to Gene, he begins to possess peace within himself, allowing him to come of

With each scenario, it is shown that most of the time Gene’s enemies are only in his head- not many are in a battle to reign supreme as he is. The war put together with these power struggles allows for such a well done piece, for the reader learns that even in times where others are in battle one does not have to be anchored against someone. Phineas and Gene’s relationship is also instrumental in delivering this message because the reader can witness Phineas, with his free and peaceful ways and realize that Gene does not have to be on the defense and seek power all of the time. Phineas is a unique contrast to Gene that helps Knowles prove his point. Just as in the book, life shows us that this urge to beat an “enemy” is unnecessary and can often have consequences like the ones Gene experienced. It is crucial to recognize the reigning powers in life and not let them take over and cause one to find evil in everyone- Knowles displays this perfectly with Gene and his

At the beginning of the story, Gene is unconcerned about his actions, but after he has suffered and understands how selfish he was. He was blinded by his jealousy of Finny and eventually his insecurities overwhelmed him. “This time he wasn’t going to get away with it. I could feel myself become unexpectedly excited at that” (30). In this

He realize Finny is not his enemy, it actually turns out to be himself after all the crazy thoughts he had. “I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case.”(Knowles 116) This quote is discussing how Gene is saying it is himself that is in the casket not Finny because Finny is not his enemy, it is himself. When he went back to Devon it was more warlike and less peaceful, so he goes to war and ends up killing his enemy at war. Alton states “In the end, inner peace is achieved only after fighting one’s own, private war growing up.” This quote is explaining how Gene achieves his peace, by fighting in a private war when getting back to Devon. To conclude, Gene has found peace in the oddest way but he definitely succeeds with

As people grow older, the more we are inclined to learn; lessons of the world, personal identities, and more, but with these come the loss of innocence. In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, the loss of innocence due to knowledge becomes evident; through the experiences of Gene, Leper, and Finny.

In life, humans go through a point in their life where they struggle or have to fight for something; Whether it be fighting for money, food, shelter,a special someone or life. In John Knowles's novel, A Separate Peace, he quotes for Gene, “...my war ended before I even put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.” As you continue to read on, although it was caused by Finny...unintentionally. You’ll realize that Gene’s enemy was his insecurities, his feelings, …. maybe even himself.

I think the main struggles he faces throughout the novel are jealously and internal guilt. Throughout the book, Gene struggles with his envy towards his best friend Finny. Even after Phineas breaks his leg, Gene is jealous of the way Finny still manages to have motivation and how Finny pretends that nothing even happened. Although Gene feels resentment for the duration of the novel, after causing Finny’s fall off the tree, he starts to feel major guilt inside of him. Even though Finny does not know that Gene jounced the tree for most of the book, I think that made Gene feel even more guilty. In the end, Gene ends up not only losing his struggle, but also losing his best friend. Gene realizes that all along, he thought Finny was the enemy, but if he had acted like Finny, like he always compared himself to be, he would have realized that the antagonists are maybe not always the enemy after all. So after Finny passed, Gene never killed anyone during World War II, and never saw anyone as an enemy, just as Finny would have

“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

One of the most major conflicts of the book is Gene wishing he could be like his best friend Finny and being dangerously jealous of him. Genes jealousy got the best of him when he decided to step on a branch on purpose, which leads to Finny falling and breaking his leg. Sadly, Finny breaks his leg again and dies from bone marrow passing into the bloodstream during surgery and it was caused by the first break of his leg that Gene caused. Gene learns from this that he should not compare himself to others, because it is simply not fair. There is growth shown in Gene when he learns this and he knows that if he let it happen again it could have tragic consequences. It took losing a best friend for Gene to know that he

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.

In this scene, Gene says that every human has to kill their enemy sooner or later. He offers the idea that his classmate’s war was World War II, but his war was at Devon. He was fighting issues he could’ve handled better which is what led to Gene losing his innocence.

Gene and Finny are faced with many situations where either good or evil will take over their decision. When Finny falls of the tree Gene “took a step toward him, and then [his] knees bent and [he] jounced the limb” (Knowles 60). Gene purposefully makes Finny fall even if neither of them realizes or accepts it at first. When Gene makes the decision to cause Finny to fall, he lets evil win. He lets it take him over to benefit himself in the long run. On the other side of it, when Gene tries to tell Finny that he did intentionally hurt him he said “of course you didn’t do it. You damn fool. Sit down, you damn fool” (Knowles 70). Finny does not want to accept the fact that his friend would do such a thing to him. He pushes out the evil that could have let him lash out at his friend and let the good in him refuse to believe it. Lastly, when Gene was fighting with Quackenbush all of a sudden Gene “hit him hard across the face” (Knowles 790). Gene lets the evil take over him and hit Quackenbush in the

World War Two is going on through out the novel, and their are many different views of this war. After Finny broke his leg Gene had time to think for himself, this led him to the conclusion that he should enlist into the war “there was always something deadly lurking in anythin I wanted, anything I loved. And if it wasn’t there, as for example with Phineas, then I put it there myself.” (101) This quote is Gene putting together the pros of going to enlist. However when the next day comes and Finny arrives, he was shoked. Finny begins to tell Gene that enlisting in the war is a crazy idea, and like everything else Gene agrees. The next day Finny shares his thoughts of the war with Finny and Gene tells him “Phineas, this is all pretty amusing and everything...but you might start to believe it and then I’d have to make a reservation for you at the the Funny Farm.”(116) This is the advice Phineas was looking for. The author uses this interaction between Phineas and Gene to symbolize the conversation they both needed to have with each other about what happened at the tree the day if the

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.

When Gene lets his competitivity get the best of him, he causes Phineas to fall out of a tree and shatter his leg. At the very end of the book it says, “I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.” Gene’s “Enemy,” is not a literal enemy, but it is referring to his former competitive self. This makes it sound like the book is saying