John Knowles Phineas Character Traits

“Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment” (Fitzgerald 30).

Phineas was the most outgoing and courageous boy on the Devon grounds. He was the one in the story that showed everyone how to not worry about things and just stay calm. In the story “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, two boys named Gene and Phineas are at a school in New Hampshire. Gene gets jealous of Finny and knocks him out of a tree and injures him which later causes Finny’s death. Phineas’ outgoing nature brought peace and excitement to the Devon school grounds. It showed Gene and the other boys what being a normal kid not worrying about the war looks like.

First of all, Gene Forrester is the narrator and one of the main characters in the novel. One of Gene’s best friends is Phineas, another main character in the novel, and an important one as well. Gene and Phineas’s relationship has its ups and downs. One of the downs being, Gene's feeling of jealousy towards Phineas. Phineas is an athletic champion and a charmer, someone everyone adores. These same qualities of Phineas make academic and studious Gene envious. The envy drives Gene to try to be a better student than Phineas, thinking that would make them equal. He thought that if he could be the smartest person in the class, then it would be equal to Phineas’s athletic stardom. What he did not know was it would change him as a person and his

“Every time, when I got my self into position to jump, I felt a flash of disbelief that was I was doing anything so perilous. But I always jumped. Otherwise I would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable.” P. 34

One way it affected them is because at one point, Gene thought Finny was out to get him. Gene stated “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies” (Knowles 28). Gene claimed Finny tried to sabotage his grades so “the great athlete” would be ahead of him. Gene came to the conclusion that this was the reason Finny wanted to do everything with him; to give him less time for studying. After finding out Finny’s true intensions, there relationship became stronger because they had a connection. In the story, “Phineas, too, feels their connection: after the accident, he informs Gene that he must become an athlete in Finny’s stead” (Alton). Gene becoming an athlete made there bond with each other that much better. At this point, the both of them finally started to have something they liked, and to enjoy the moment. Do to Gene’s action, he made it challenging to find

I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything" (Knowles 18). His innocence and likeability help shape his microcosm how to his liking.

John Knowles implies Phineas is naive through the implementation of dialogue. Phineas confesses to Gene that “[he] hope[s] [Gene is] having a pretty good time here… you can’t come by yourself, and at this teenage-period in life the proper person is your best pal” (48). The boys live in a masculine society, which places an emphasis on strength. To expose one’s feelings to someone else is considered “social suicide.” Therefore, Gene takes advantage of Phineas’ naiveté by not responding to his declaration of friendship. Phineas also asserts that “when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love” (111). Phineas’ philosophy centers around a world of youth of peace; he always attempts to find the best in everyone. This naive attitude contrasts with the cruel nature of the world, where wars and competitions are common occurrences. At Gene’s trial for Phineas’ fall, Phineas asks Gene if “[he] was down at the bottom” (170) in a concerned, friendly tone. Phineas fears of Gene’s betrayal; he cannot believe that his friend would have the urge to push him out the tree. In order to protect his high opinion of Gene, he alters the past in his mind to avoid facing the truth. This emphasizes his naiveté as the true events do not align with what Phineas made up in his mind. At the hospital after Phineas’s second fall, following the trial, Gene explains to Phineas that he would "get things so scrambled up nobody would know who to fight any more” and that “[he would] make a mess, a terrible mess...out of the war'" (191). Phineas’ world does not hold any fights or enmity. His good character is unrealistic in this world. Consequently, the war would drive him to madness.

He is never satisfied with himself. Gene hangs pictures on his wall “...of plantation mansions, moss-hung trees by moonlight, lazy roads winding dustily past the cabins of the Negroes” (156) to give the impression that he is a southern aristocrat which was “...a barefaced lie about [his] background…” (156). He also very jealous of Finny and feels that he wants to be like him. This is evident when he decides to put of Finny’s cordovan shoes, pants, and pink shirt. When Gene looked in the mirror, he felt like he became Finny. It made him feel good about himself because he was finally the person he was yearning to be but in the morning he was faced with the reality that he caused Finny to fall out of the tree. Gene usually feels like an ant, a humble nothing, but when he “transformed” into Phineas he feels less like an ant. He feels as superior as he sees Finny. He rose above his ant-like feelings in this moment. Gene is the cause of his low self-esteem because he feels the need to compare himself to Phineas. When Gene realizes that he is a very different person from Phineas it makes him feel lower. Phineas is a 16 year old athlete with

Phineas tries to make the most out of a boring boarding school by providing entertainment to his

89) and after being pressured to tell everything , "First I stole all his money. Then I found that he cheated on his entrance tests to Devon and I blackmailed his parents about that, then I made love to his sister in Mr. Ludsbury's study, then I..." (g. 90) and he trails off as he's about to mention the accident because he could never tell the truth. As stated before, Phineas argued with Gene about the accident, but he had suspicions too. As the book goes on he continually ignores his broken leg the best he can, and turns the war into a fable that was created by the fat old men that don’t want their jobs stolen.

him to do good in school and accomplish his goals at devon school. Phineas was a

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