Brittany Schafer
September 21, 2012 Period 4
A Separate Peace Final Draft
In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, it relates to a complicated friendship of two young boys Gene and Phineas. Gene is jealous of Phineas' achievements and lets his anger destroy their relationship. The boys at Devon in the summer of 1942 have to deal with the fear WorldWar II brings. Each time the boys feel safe and peaceful, reality sets in and reminds them of the warfare around them. The boy's mental stability is tested by the struggles of school and the causes of their actions. John Knowles' A Separate Peacedisplays how fear, warfare, and friendship can affect a person's innocence and youth. Fear has affected Gene and made him paranoid with...show more content...
Gene asks Finny what he think caused him to fall out of the tree to find out if Finny knows it was Gene. When Gene visits Finny and tells him he was at fault, he regrets telling him, "It struck me then that I was injuring him again. It occurred to me that this could be an even deeper injury than what I had done before. I would have to back out of it, I would have to disown it." (62) Gene cannot handle the stress of telling Finny the truth that he is afraid he might black out. Throughout the novel, the war has caused great worry, wonder, and fear for the sixteen–year–old boys at Devon who could enlist anytime. When the Boys open a Winter Carnival, it helps them believe that the war does not exist and gets their mind off the war. Gene is caught up yet again in Finny's upbeat world by helping run this carnival. The boys' happiness is interrupted at the end of the carnival when a telegram is sent by Leper informing the boys he has escaped. The boys not only deal with military warfare, but personal wars and feelings of hostility and resentment. Gene learns that one mans only enemy was himself, "...this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way– if he never attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy." (196) Gene struggles
Get more content
A Separate Peace: by John Knowles
During World War II in the struggle for peace among nations comes a smaller, but still significant struggle, in a prep school boy becoming a man and waking up to reality.
In the book A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles, creates the image of twosixteen–year old boys struggling to keep what little sense of peace they know, even though there is a war going on all around them. GeneForrester, the narrator of the story also struggles with an inner conflict of his secret resentment of his best friend Phineas (Finny). Phineas struggles with the disbelief that he can never be of any use to the war efforts with a "busted leg."...show more content...
Finny does not believe a word of this disturbing revelation and sends Gene away. When Finny does return to Devon, he never brings up Gene's off–the–wall confession. Months pass and suddenly the accident is brought up again by a boy named Brinker who believes that there is more to the story than what is being said. (No one else in the school new for a fact that Gene shook the branch on purpose to make Finny fall, they just had empty accusations.) So Brinker set up a sort–of mock court one night and took Gene and Finny there. Finny was seated in the middle of the Assembly Hall and asked to tell what happened. Since Gene's confession, Finny refuses to believe it is true and imagines that Gene wasn't even in the tree with him, therefore, he would not be able to place Gene as the guilty one. As the story unravels of what really happens, Finny gets fed up and leaves the building saying, "I just don't care. Never mind." And then all the boys hear him fall down a flight of stairs, re–breaking his leg. This time though, Finny isn't so lucky and while the doctor is setting the break, some of the bone marrow gets into his bloodstream and immediately stops his heart. When Gene hears of this he does not cry, nor does he ever cry over Finny's death, because when Finny died it was like he died with Finny. At the end of the school year, Gene enlists in the war and joined the
A Separate Peace Essay
In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the protagonist, Gene Forrester "battled" within himself to find "a separate peace" and in this process directed his emotions at Phineas, his roommate. Forrester and Phineas formed the illusion of a great companionship, but there was a "silent rivalry" between them in Forrester's mind. Self deceptions in Forrester led him to believe that Phineas was "out to get him" (Forrester).
Subconsciously Forrester jounced the limb of the tree and forced Phineas to fall and break his leg. Phineas found out the truth of his "accident" with the help of Leper Lepellier and Brinker Hadley, who were friends that attendedDevon High School. Gene Forrester's conflict between his ...show more content...
But while he was a very poor student I was a pretty good athlete, and when everything was thrown into the scales they would in the end tilt definitely toward me (Forrester,)" (47). The "rivalry" inside Forrester led him to believe that Phineas had these feelings of resentment toward him (Forrester,) and was also competing to be the "best".
Self deceptions inside of Gene Forrester led him to believe that Phineas was "out to get him". Forrester realized that, "Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies" (45), when Phineas said, "I'd kill myself out of jealous envy" (44) (if Forrester was valedictorian). Having believed Phineas, Forrester came to another realization that Phineas had created blitzball and the Super Suicide Society to distract him (Forrester) from being "the best". Phineas did not know that Forrester needed to study in order to get good grades; "I didn't know you needed to study," (50) he said when Forrester wanted to stay and study rather than go to the Super Suicide Society meeting. Phineas thought that academics came naturally to Forrester as athletics came to him (Phineas). Forrester took Phineas trying to be a friend as him trying to distract for his (Forrester's) academics.
The Super Suicide Society meeting was held for Leper Lepellier to jump from the "forbidden" tree. To open the meeting Phineas and Forrester tried a double jump. "Holding firmly to the trunk, I (Forrester) took a step Get
A Separate Peace
Dealing with enemies has been a problem since the beginning of time. "I never killed anybody," Gene had commented later in his life, "And I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform, I was on active duty all my time at Devon; I killed my enemy there." In A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the value of dealing withenemies is shown by Gene, who was dealing with few human enemies, but his emotions created far greater rivals than any human could ever posses.
One of the enemies that Gene created for himself was jealousy. Gene was jealous of everything about Finny. The openness which Finny possessed was one of these things which Gene envied. One incident of...show more content...
The real war, however, started when he got the idea that because Finny had low grades, he wanted to lower Gene's grades as well, so he could remain "better than" Gene. Gene believed that Finny was trying to wreck his studies with games and going to the beach, and their Secret Suicide Society. Another time Gene's anger shows is when Finny wanted Gene to come jump off the tree into the river with him, as they had been doing, and he claimed that Leper would be jumping too. Gene burst out angrily at the idea because he was studying, and he thought Finny was trying to wreck his grades, so he said no. Finny responded with no offense taken. Gene not being able to say "no" to Finny changed his mind and went to the tree anyway. Gene was now enraged on the inside because he realized that Finny was not trying to wreck his studies, and really was "perfect." Still feeling angry by Finny's "perfection," Gene jounced the limb when they were about to jump, causing Finny to fall and break his leg. This shows that Gene's anger, mixed with this jealousy, drove him to cause physical pain to someone who was dear to him.
Another enemy of Gene's is Finny's modesty. Early in the story, Finny demonstrated his modesty by when asked for his height he replied "Five feet eight and a half inches." Gene replied that he himself was "five feet nine inches." Finny pointed out that they were the same height and that Gene shouldn't be ashamed to
Separate
Peace" by John KnowlesSeparate Peace What really happened in the tree? Gene and Finny were very good friends; however, whatever happened in the tree the day the Finny "fell" out, is the actual cause of Gene "...My knees bent and I jounced the limb..." page 52. In fact, Finny did not fall out of the tree, but Gene had actually pushed him out. Gene had very good reasons to push him out "Finny had put him up to it, to finish me fro good on the exam." Page 49. He pushed him out of jealousy for two things. For athleticism, and for his popularity, and also for his ability to talk his way out of anything.. First, Finny was a very athletic person; however, Gene is just a normal average day person. Gene couldn't stand...show more content... Finny was able to talk people into doing anything, just by how he acted. Moreover, he was able to invent a new sport because of his athleticism. Another example of finny being better and saying, "I can do it and you can't". Gene knew as a fact that he could not invent a new sport and get enough attention for it. Gene could not do many things that Finny was able to do, such as talk his way out of anything. During summer school, Finny was able to talk his way out of getting in trouble a couple times. When he and Gene had skipped dinner to go to the tree, they were caught when they were walking back. All he did was talk to the teacher right there, and nothing ever came up about again. Another time was when Finny was at the headmaster's house for tea, he was wearing a tie as a belt, but the odd part was that it was the school tie. Again, Phineas explained to the headmaster, that wearing the school tie as a belt, contributed to the war effort. All he had to do was explain it, and he never got in trouble again. Gene probably wished he had the ability to do that; however, he knew that only Finny could do it, and with such ease.
When Gene and Finny road to the beach, it was Finny's idea in the first place. They spent the night on the beach and when they got back Gene fails his triginometry test. Later Gene claims that Finny did it on purpose to lower his grade and make Finny look good. They never really told what Finny's intentions really