Liberal Humanistic Critique of A Separate Peace

Essentially, Gene’s conflict begins as he develops feelings of envy towards Finny’s outgoing personality and appealing charisma, which causes him to hide behind a persona in the one-sided rivalry he has with Finny. When Gene flunks a test for the first time, he finds an excuse to justify his failure, concluding that Finny purposely interrupted his studies by inviting him to the beach. Gene reasons, “Sure, he wanted to share everything with me, especially his procession of D’s in every subject.

In life, there are two opposing forces that wage a constant war in men’s hearts, truth and ignorance. While some walk along the enlightened path of truth, others are blinded by the veil of ignorance, unable to see anything beyond their distorted view of the world. In John Knowles A Separate Peace, two maturing teens named Gene and Finny feel the effects of this inner strife, which shapes their actions and causes the fall, and eventual death, of Finny. While Gene comes to terms with the glaring light of truth, Finny continues to hide behind a veil of ignorance and innocence, unable to handle the truth’s piercing rays.Through his writing, Knowles conveys that truth’s omnipresent light shines through the murky depths of ignorance, illuminating

“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

Finny's death was a shock and a dark part of the novel, A Separate Peace. John Knowles, the author, dissolved the drama between Gene and Finny. Sadly to say his death was necessary in the novel even though it seemed to add more guilt towards Gene. A Separate Peace written by John Knowles is a novel about Gene`s friendship with Finny.

Gene affects himself though envy and imitation. Gene begins to lose his identity and start conforming to Finny. The author states that “Naturally Finny was going to be the first to try, and just as naturally he was going to inveigle others, us, into trying it with him” (Knowles 4). This quote explains how Finny has a way of getting Gene

Gene Finds Peace “Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide...” (Emerson 370). In the novel, A Separate Peace Knowles tells us about a Gene’s past time at Devon’s High School. Gene is a smart, conformist, and jealous person. In A Separate Peace, Knowles describes how Gene envy and limitation of Finny affect him, how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect his relationship with Finny, and how Gene achieves peace. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him. One way he’s affect is when he hurts Finny, so now he has to play sports for him. In the novel Finny states “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play for me” (Knowles 85). Finny is telling Gene since he can not play sports, Gene going to have to play them for him. Making Gene change more and more into Finny.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a novel that demonstrates major transformations in the characters Gene and Finny, pitting their early innocence and adulthood later in the novel. Published in 1959, the novel follows the two characters as they are largely influenced by WWII, a feud between the two characters, and major changes in other characters and the environment around the two. A Separate Peace is the pinnacle of a coming of age novel.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a fictional novel. The story is about 2 boys that went to Devon high school during World War 2. The war gradually encroaches upon and finally dominates life at Devon and it is shown through the views, attitudes, and beliefs of Gene and Finny.

The real world is a scary place, but can be amazing and beautiful if you are able to understand it. In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, the characters, Gene and Finny, have perspectives on life that are very different from each other. When it comes down to an answer, Gene is the one who understands and is better suited to live in the real world than Finny. In the novel, through Gene’s description of Finny, there is a full perception of who Finny really is.

Nothing as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity” (203). Gene believes Finny an amazing human being, partially due to his charisma and loyalty. Gene then finds peace within himself and his jealousy has in turn diminished. Gene’s thoughts of jealousy portray Finny as charismatic and

Have you ever been jealous of your best friend? John Knowles wrote “A Separate Peace” to show us what it’s like as a teenager growing up. Gene is an intelligent and thoughtful boy but he has dirty ways. “A Separate Peace” shows how Gene is envy of finny and how it affects him, how it affects his relationship with finny, and did he achieve or lack of his peace.

A Separate Peace, which was written by John Knowles, has many themes. They are interconnected throughout the book. The most clearly portrayed theme is fear. It seems to be connected with the themes of friendship, jealousy, and war. As World War II was occurring, fear had taken over Gene's life through these various themes. When he visited Devon fifteen years after leaving the school, Gene claimed, "I had lived in fear while attending the school and I can now feel fear's echo" (Knowles 10). He felt like he had gained a separate peace after escaping from this fear.

Finny is athletic, popular, outgoing, and now has created this super suicide society as a sport and is good at it. In the story Gene says, “you always win at sports” (Knowles, p.35). Finny has made this a sport basically, and Gene has turned it into some sort of competition. Jealousy fills Genes body, because now finny is good at everything, including the things that Gene is not. Now there are a lot more things that Gene says and thinks to himself that show jealousy, but one thing that really catches everyones attention, are the things he

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide…” (Emerson, 370-372). John Knowles progressed a novel, A Separate Peace with a focus around two young boys that enrolled in a boarding school during the 1940s when World War II was occurring. One of the two boys, Gene, his personality traits and behavior could be described as both conformity. A Separate Peace provides the integrity of how Gene’s envy and imitation of himself, Finny, and if he found his peace when returning to Devon 15 years later.

Little sorrow and sadness is expressed around school, even in Gene; no one talks about what happened but everyone remembers, especially Gene. Throughout the novel, John Knowles' strong characterization of Finny results in a more developed and wiser Gene; in the end, Finny actually makes Gene a better person.