Have you ever felt what it was like to lose your best friend? Gene Forrester, in A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, not only has to deal with the fact that his best friend is gone, but he also has to deal with the fact that he is the reason he is gone. Gene also comes across fear during the novel. He has to face not only World War II but the war inside of his head. He struggles with a big decision, of whether Finny is his best friend. He has a theory that Finny is jealous of him and tries to sabotage his grades when really Gene is jealous of Finny and tries to claim they are even. Later on in the novel, he recognizes that Phineas made him a more improved version of himself. A Separate Peace is a bildungsroman because the main character, Gene, is able to deal with the fact that Finny, his best friend is gone, he stops being jealous of Finny, and he realizes Finny made him a better person. …show more content…
He goes back to his old school, Devon, and visits the two sites where his life changed. Gene copes with his feelings and realizes he has forgiven himself. “I began at that point the emotional examination to note how far my convalescence had gone” (Knowles 11). The narrator matures after seeing the sites where Finny died and fell from the tree, and he knows he never meant to hurt Phineas. Gene also remembers growing up when confronting Finny to tell him he had jounced the limb. “I was thinking about it… about you because- I was thinking about you and the accident because I caused it” (Knowles 69). This was an arduous thing for him to do, but Gene knew Finny deserved the truth. It proves that Gene is growing because he understands that he cannot live a life of