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A Separate Peace: Character Analysis

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Emerson states that “envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide” (370). Famous author John Knowles wrote A Separate Peace during the events of World War II at his prep school Devon. He writes about a boy similar to himself who struggles with accepting his progress towards adulthood. Gene, the boy in question, finds himself escaping this issue through his best friend Phineas. A Separate Peace demonstrates how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him, how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect his relationship with Finny, and Gene’s lack of peace. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him. Throughout the story Gene has a difficult time making decisions for himself, as a result he turns towards Finny to influence his decisions. In the …show more content…

Gene’s ultimate goal to be more like Finny was never achieved in the story, Finny’s unique personality faced Gene with the problem that he’d never be like him. An example of this is found in the article, which states, “By presenting Gene with his utter uniqueness, Phineas forces him to grapple with questions of identity and to confront the unrealized depths of his own character.” (Alton). With this in mind Gene is forced to find his own character which we know throughout the story is his not his goal. His goal is to become more like Finny, which he can not achieve because it is impossible to become someone. This leaves Gene at a point where he no longer knows what to do and leaves him confused. Gene never reaches his complete peace because he figures out that the real enemy is within himself. Alton states “Gene’s acknowledgement that the real enemy is within himself and, indeed, within each of us: we’re all liable to corruption from within by our own envy, anger, and fear.” At the end of the story Gene says he’s killed off the enemy and left them at Devon. This is untrue, as we know that by the end of the story Gene’s true enemy is himself. If Gene truly felt as if he killed off the enemy and left them at Devon there would be no need to return to Devon later in his

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Maybe there was once a time when Gene was Finny’s genuine friend, but at some point, a seed of doubt plants itself in Gene’s brain and spreads like a virus tainting his image of Finny in Chapter 2. His true feelings about Finny are seen right after Finny yet again talks his way out of trouble, and Gene says he “. . .felt a sudden stab of disappointment.” (Knowles 28) Instead of being happy that Finny escaped trouble as a genuine friend would be, he was hoping Finny would get in trouble for his shenanigans. As the story progresses, his envy towards Finny grows and grows until eventually, instead of seeing him as a friend, he begins viewing him as an opponent and villainizes his every action (Knowles 52).

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How does Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him and his relationship with Finny, if “envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide.” In a A Separate Peace by John Knowles, is a story about a flashback of when he was a student at Devon Academy. The character Gene goes back to Devon Academy and visits special places of when he went to Devon. A Separate Peace illustrates how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him, affect his relationship with Finny, and Gene’s achievement. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him.

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He starts out the novel as a boy, completely passive, and slowly transitions to a man of violence and aggression. His progression on this dark path has its tipping point with his purposeful injuring of Finny, “his best friend.” After that fact, Gene becomes prone to fighting, lying and slacking off. With the added backdrop of World War II, the change in Gene is not all unexpected during that time. But, in Gene’s case, he let the war, both the real and internal one, take hold of his mind and lead him to destruction.

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Despite hurting many people, Gene is actually suffering the most from his own insecurities which contributes to his emotional struggle. Therefore, although Gene makes many mistakes, he cannot be seen as inherently evil because he acts out of a lack of understanding of himself rather than

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In the novel, “A Separate Peace”, by John Knowles, the main character, Gene changes from a clueless boy. Then he soon started to understand the events going on in the middle of the novel. Towards the end of the novel, Gene was a wise young boy who gained his knowledge within his group of peers. Gene has changed in very many different ways among the novel. At first Gene was a negative person, he always saw the worst in people.

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Finny was one of those kids that was a rebel, but could talk his way out of everything. The “Houdini” of getting in trouble! Gene was obviously jealous of this, like everyone. But, the kicker is when the reader finds out that Gene thought that Finny was trying to sabotage him because he was jealous of Gene’s academic abilities. Finny would never sabotage Gene.

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Since Finny cannot play sports anymore because of his broken leg, he tells Gene that he has to do it for him. Gene realizes that this is his destiny; to become an extension of Phineas. Another way he is affected is that he starts to lose his own ways by copying Finny. When Finny was in the hospital wing of the school, Gene put his clothes on and said “that I would never stumble through the confessions

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He is basically, through rhetorical questions, saying that he does not want to do what Finny does, but it’s like he cannot help it. This is affecting who Gene is as a person because he is not thinking for himself. Is Gene really even himself if Finny is doing the thinking for him? If he is not thinking for himself, he is not being true to himself. Another way that Gene is affected is that he allows his imitation of Finny get in the way of his schooling.

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The first reason why Gene finds peace is because he realizes that Phineas was not the enemy and that the real enemy was himself. He describes the realization by saying, “All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy who they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way--if he was indeed the enemy.” (Knowles 204). At this point, in the end of the story, Gene recognizes that he was fighting a battle against someone who was not fighting back, and that the person he thought was the enemy was not actually the enemy. Next, Gene also gains peace because he finds his own identity after Phineas dies.

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Even through Gene’s envy and imitation effected his relationship with Finny, he still managed to find peace within everything that happened. Throughout A Separate Peace, Gene found peace within himself and within his relationship with Finny. The first reason this is so is because he (Gene) realizes that Finny isn’t the enemy after all. In An Overview of “A Separate Peace”, Alton states, “

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He still encourages Gene to do the things that Finny no longer can because he wants to see someone else flourish, and most importantly: his friend. After Finny’s death, Gene even declares that “nothing … had broken [Finny’s] harmonious and natural unity” (Knowles 203). Since Gene exclaims this, the reader understands that Finny

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Gene comes of age through his understanding of the difficult challenges in his youth. Gene’s jealousy towards Finny’s perfect personality causes him to have childish emotions, such as resentment. Gene Forrester constantly battles within himself clashing emotions, specifically, hate and envy, towards Phineas. Since he strives to be like Finny, Gene does everything in his power to shove down his feelings of hatred and jealousy. After Finny beat the school swimming record, Gene suspiciously asks himself why Finny did not want him to share the news with anyone else.

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This causes him to shake the branch Finny was standing on causing him to fall and shatter his leg. This incident makes it even harder for Gene to find himself. Finny expects Gene to play sports and to practically become a clone of him. Because Finny can no longer do the things he loves, he starts to live through Gene. Gene no longer knows who he is.

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“Then a second realization broke as clearly and bleakly as dawn at the beach. Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies.” (24) Gene thinks this after going to the beach with Finny and ruining his grade because of the lack of studying due to his time spent having fun. This is just one example of how Gene thinks there's some sort of ongoing competition between themselves, causing Gene to be extremely jealous, self concerning and over analyzing about every situation instead of just enjoying the fun the two have as Finny does. Even though Gene acts like this he is still very friendly and a good person.

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Finny not being able to play sports anymore that meant Gene was next in line for the top athlete at Devon. In addition, this incident leads to Finny having several health issues and dying towards the end of the novel. Gene knew that Finny had no admirations towards him and that made him angered. Gene was hurt when Finn died but he still didn’t change once he went to war or when he came back to visit Devon in his elder years. “He had never been jealous of me for a second.

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