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A Separate Peace Coming Of Age Essay

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Paige Lincoski Advanced English 9 Miss Malley and Miss Borden 19 April 2024 “Never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy. Never underestimate that,” the film director, Oliver Stone, once said. The coming of age novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is an example of the negative consequences that form because of jealousy and envy in a friendship. It is identified in A Separate Peace that the main character never feels like his own person, due to always being in his friend Finny's shadow, and his strong emotions of jealousy and envy have led to issues throughout their schooling. In John Knowles’ coming of age novel, A Separate Peace, the author conveys the theme of being oneself and avoiding jealousy, otherwise …show more content…

Throughout this novel, all of Gene’s emotions have led to him having an unhealthy relationship with his self identity and conflicts with other people in the book. Gene is starting to grow even more envious of Finny. He soon realizes that Finny is getting away with a lot of things that most others can not; “He has gotten away with everything. I felt a sudden stab of disappointment. That was because I just wanted to see some more excitement; that must have been it” (Knowles 28). Gene has many different emotions about Finny, it is conveyed that he is extremely envious and jealous of him. These negative emotions are the leading factors for some of the problems the two of them have later on. For example, Gene’s jealousy sparked something in him to “jounce” the limb. Gene’s feelings got in the way of their friendship. Gene was planning on enlisting, but when Gene walked in and Finny was there, he changed his mind completely and acted as if he never wanted to in the first place; “Enlist! What a nutty idea, a nutty idea. It’s just Brinker wanting to get there first

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The friendship Gene and Finny have throughout the story slowly changes to envy that Gene portrays towards Finny as a result of his jealousy. Finny is only one of those sort of gentlemen that is extremely understood and individuals truly like. However, Finny is the kind of individual who is great at everything including sports and talking himself out of trouble. For example, Finny breaking the school swimming recorded lead to Gene being desirous. Gene predicts that Finny is attempting to show off his athletic ability.

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A person’s coming of age journey involves growing despite the internal and external impediments, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Cullen Thomas’ prison experience written by himself in Brother One Cell, as well as “Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?” an article by Alana Semuels about poverty-stricken children, all touch on overcoming struggles and growing into an adult from that. Gene Forrester from A Separate Peace is a young high schooler at a fictional school called Devon. Gene does not have many external struggles, but rather, he creates hindrances for himself most of which include his close friend Phineas. Gene’s coming of age is him overcoming this internal battle he created inside of himself with Finny and, dealing with the guilt of causing

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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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Gene never told Finny that he was also his best friend. Ever since that moment Gene felt as if he owed it to Finny, to do what he asked even though he was hesitant to do so. Finny did not consist of only good traits; furthermore, he had flaws just as everyone else. He was selfish, conceited, and manipulative. Multiple times he compelled Gene to do activities when he and Gene both knew that Gene should be studying.

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At the end of the novel, Gene finally confesses what he did to Finny which took a lot of courage even though he did the wrong thing to begin with. As exemplified on page 115, Finny matures so much throughout the novel and apologizes for his actions towards Finny, he says, “… it was just some ignorance inside me, some crazy thing inside me, something blind, that’s all it was.” When apologizing to Finny and acknowledging that he did make a mistake and caused harm to Finny because of it. This is an example of Gene’s progression from a childlike mentality of not owning his mistakes, to claiming them and accepting his consequences.

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Gene believes that Finny and he hate each other, until he realizes Finny’s pureness, which Gene can not stand. At first, Gene believes that Finny wants to exceed him, and that the two are rivals. Everyone at Devon likes Finny. The teachers adore him, the students look up to him, the athletes aspire

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Gene wanted Finny to get in trouble for what Finny had did, which had worn his tie as a belt. He hated that Finny got away with almost anything that he did wrong and wanted to go down someday. Another way their relationship is affected is through Gene’s lack of self-finding and liking. Gene hated that he never was like Finny, so he started to acting and do things that Finny did. That caused a lot of jealousy, guilt, and self-destruction from throughout the relationship that Gene and Finny had.

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Do you ever have trouble finding your own identity? In the novel A Separate Peace, the author creates an atmosphere that some characters struggle to find their identities’. One character that can relate is Gene Forester. Gene is a great character, but he struggles with imitation, jealousy, and ignorance. John Knowles depicts how Gene struggles with self-destruction and later finds his peace.

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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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1042 Words | 5 Pages

Gene jostled his good friend off of a tall branch out of spite, and identically, he also jostled away any form of competition between him and his best mate.  With Finny gone for the remainder of the summer session, Gene fell into an identity crisis where he felt obligated to keep Finny’s spirit alive while he wasn’t there by becoming Finny himself.   In chapter five, Gene dons his bedridden friend’s clothes on with the intention of adopting Finny’s confident nature, whereas in reality the scene just proves his insecurities with their friendship and to himself (Knowles 62).  Consequently, this was the start of the downward spiral of their relationship, since Gene alleged to be finding himself by becoming more like Finny and less like his actual nature.

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1626 Words | 7 Pages

To rid himself anger, he unleashes his rage on others, punching Quackenbush, kicking the chair out of Leper, and causing Finny to fall from the tree. In order to justify his defamation of Finny, he believed that Finny is out to sabotage him. Gene is constantly paranoid about Finny. To him, Finny is abusive and manipulative. In reality, Finny is his best friend who cares for him.

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755 Words | 4 Pages

This part of Gene wants to become Valedictorian. Gene becomes jealous of Finny. All he can think about is being like him. Gene even crosses the line and tries on Finny’s clothes. Through all of his jealousy, Gene ends up not being able to control his feelings.

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582 Words | 3 Pages

Finny used to ask Gene to go and do other things instead of studying. Gene normally did what Finny asked. Gene decided that Finny was trying to hurt him when they story states, “Suddenly he turned his fire against me, he betrayed several of his other friends,” and he was doing things on his own (102). The second stage of Finny and Gene’s friendship is betrayal and guilt.

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1024 Words | 5 Pages

Charles Kuralt once said, “ The love of family and the admirations of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.” This quote shows how jealousy and popularity aren’t as important as relationships in your life. In the book, A Separate Peace, Gene has different priorities than relationships. Gene, a young boy who attends Devon boarding school, goes through many different trials along his grade school journey. He faces problems with friends and school life during the time of World War two and the draft being in full swing.

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608 Words | 3 Pages

(Page 204) Gene, allowing himself to act on his jealousy, ultimately resulted in the death of his best friend Finny “By the end of the novel, Gene has accepted both his own guilt and the gift of Finny’s friendship. The experience has helped him to grow into an insightful, responsible, and compassionate

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