The rivalry between Phineas & Gene starts by Gene thinking that Finny is jealous of him because he studies for assessments, smart, & maintains good grades. By Gene thinking this, he begins to get jealous of Phineas because he’s an excellent athlete & can get away with basically anything. I think the conflict is that Gene thinks Finny is jealous of him. I believe this because the first time they climbed up the tree, the branch was kind of shaky & Gene lost his balance & was about to fall into the bank until Phineas reached out & grabbed him. The second time, it was Finny who’d lost his balance because Gene was purposely agitating the branch so that he could fall. When he fell, Gene didn’t reach out for him. If Gene & Finny were both 16-yr-old
In many quotes throughout the book, “A Separate Piece” by John Knowles, you can infer that Gene is envious especially towards Phineas. Gene begins at Devon School with Finny, for many weeks Finny begins to excel at a lot and win any argument, leaving Gene feeling jealous and angry toward him. Gene begins to think that Finny is distracting him from his schoolwork on purpose, which makes him even angrier. Gene then causes Finny to fall out of a tree because of a blind impulse.
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
come easily to him. He is not capable of such emotions as jealousy or envy. He
As you can see, Gene had much reason to push Finny out of the tree. It was from jealousy from Finny's athleticism, his popularity, and his ability to talk his way out of almost anything. Only Gene knew that Finny was the only person at the school that could accomplish so many things, and Gene did not want to deal with Phineas
At the start, Gene is instantly jealousy of Finny, creating a fake friendship that is fueled by competition. This is shown when he wants to do something so he is good at, so he “was becoming the best student in the school: Phineas was without question the best athlete, so in that way we were even” (Knowles 55). This proves that their friendship is fueled by competition because it shows that Gene always wants to be even. This
| Gene strives to be either better or equal to Finny. He has the smarts, and Phineas has the athletics. Again, he is not being a good friend by comparing themselves with each other.
First, Gene is struggling with the consequences of his actions even though it did not harm him him physically, it destroyed him mentally. The big two conflicts in this half of the book is again, person vs. person and person vs. self, but in different ways than originally. The person vs. person conflict is between Gene and Phineas again, except this time it is fighting for trust and their friendship. After Gene is forced to partake in the trial to discuss Phineas’s injury, Phineas can’t bear the truth any longer. When Gene tries to confront Finny after Leper’s testimony, Finny says “I just don’t care. Never mind.” (Pg. 177). Later, after storming out of the trial and falling down the marble stairs had re-broken his leg, Gene tries to talk to Phineas again, only to hear “You want to break something else in me! Is that why you’re here!” (Pg. 184). Gene loses and regains Finny’s trust multiple times throughout this novel, but always seem to come to terms in their friendship. The person vs. self conflict is again, Gene vs. himself, except this time he is not struggling from jealousy of Phineas, he is dealing with the consequences of the actions the jealousy made him take. Gene misses their old friendship and just wants to be right with Phineas, despite how he[Gene] ruined his athletic and military
When Gene is quick to realize that him and Finny will never be of the same power, Knowles shows us that a loss of identity may be present in a relationship if there is an unequal amount of power. Gene realizes that Finny is someone who can do anything and he states that “He had never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could be any rivalry between us. I was not the same quality as he” (59). Gene’s low self-esteem starts to build up as he explains that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be as good and powerful as Phineas. Finny has everything in his power and is capable of so many things also remaining his own person. However, Gene feels the complete opposite as he understands that to become someone as mighty as Finny, he has to change who he is to even get Finny to notice him as a threat. As a result of this unequal
After the realization of the person he truly is Gene confronts with his problems, faces reality, and deals with the future. He learns a lot about life and relationships when he finds about his true self. He learns that he must truly express his feelings and communicate instead of keeping all the feelings inside as he had always done with Phineas. Also he learns to listen to himself not others around him if he wants a true advice. After a while, he faced reality and acknowledged the fact that he was not as great was Phineas but they were two different individuals and they were unique in different ways. Gene accepted the guilt for Phineas’ difficulties after his accident and decided he must he must help him as a punishment and act of repentance for what his deed. He does this by giving part of himself to Phineas as we see with the case of the sports
The start of this tragedy was when the boy and his best friend, Gene Forrester, decided to jump out of a tree together. The two have been best friends and roommates for a long time. So long Gene felt close enough to Phineas that he felt like a part of Phineas, or Finny. Gene Forrester states, “It must have been my purpose from the the first to become a part of Phineas.” Gene and Phineas might have been two opposites, but they brought out the best in each other. Finny was more of the rebel/athlete, and Gene was better in school. It was Finny’s idea to start a secret society, Super Suicide Society, in which to become a member you had to jump out of a tree into a river.Gene and Phineas had jumped from the tree plenty of times by now, so Phineas thought it would be a great idea to spice things up. He proposed that the two jump out together at the same time. Finny climbed first, and moved farther out
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
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.
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.
Competition and rivalry have the ability to make people shine and accomplish things they never thought possible, and the ability to bring a person’s dark side and get them to do terrible things. Phineas and Gene’s friendship is viewed very differently by each of them. Where Phineas sees Gene as his best friend Gene sees Phineas as a competitor. Gene sees him as someone trying to keep him from being successful in school. This warped view of their relationship is the cause of many of the eventual problems of the novel and arguably the death of Phineas.
In the beginning of the novel, Gene, is a clueless individual. He sees the worst in people and lets his evil side take over not only his mind but also his body. During the tree scene, Gene convinces himself that Finny isn’t his friend, tricking himself into thinking that Finny is a conniving foil that wants to sabotage his academic merit. Gene is furthermore deluded that every time Finny invites Gene somewhere it’s to keep him from studying and