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An Analysis Of Gean's Lack Of Peace By John Knowles

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Gean’s Lack of Peace The famed author Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated that “envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide,” (Emerson 370-372). John Knowles explores this idea in his novel, A Separate Peace, set in an all-boys school in New Hampshire. The story focuses on one Gene Forrester, a young boy growing up in the midst of the Second World War. Gene is quite envious of, and easily persuaded by, his best friend Phineas. This leads to a decline in his friendship and is eventually the reason for his lack of peace. Gene’s envy and imitation of his best friend leads him to go along with whatever Phineas wants him to do. He begins conforming to whatever Phineas wants, even if Gene doesn’t really want to. “Why did I let finny talk me into stupid things …show more content…

His envy of Phineas also leads him to be scared to go against his will. “I always jumped. Otherwise I would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable,” (Knowles 34). Gene is scared to lose his best friend. He believes it unimaginable to go against Phineas’ will because he can’t Knobloch 2 bear the thought of making him angry. Gene’s envy and imitation not only affects himself, but also their friendship as a whole. As Gene continues to question Phineas and his true intentions, their friendship begins to decline. Gene begins to believe that Phineas is out to destroy him, and becomes less trusting. “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies,” (Knowles 53). Gene convinces himself that Phineas hates him, and wants to destroy his grades. He concludes that Phineas is jealous of him, just as Gene is envious of Phineas. As he dwells on the idea that Phineas is out to destroy him, he even begins to believe that Phineas wishes to be better than him. “Sure, he wanted to share everything with me, especially his procession of D’s in every subject. That way he, the great athlete, would be way ahead of me,” (Knowles

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Gene was jealous of Finny athletic achievements, careless personality, and his natural leadership. “I was starting to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn't help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little (Knowles 20)”. Gene trying to justify his ill feelings by saying its natural to be jealous.

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Which makes Gene quite an annoyance. When the doctor tells Gene and FInny that Phineas would never play sports again Gene bursts into tears, whereas Phineas tells Gene “What are you looking so sick about?”(65). Phineas understood what happened to him is horrible but frankly Gene feels worse than he does about the situation. This is because Gene is depressed, and feels completely responsible for the situation that ruined his friend’s goals for the

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Gene’s relationship with his “best friend” Phineas describes how the relationship resulted in the killing of Gene's enemy, his own youth, and innocence. Gene is plainly described in the novel as envious of Finny, he is also depicted as the position of much hatred and dismay by his peers. Therefore, the fact that Gene kills his own youth is likely considering Finny’s success, Gene’s jealousy towards

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The way he expresses how even though Phineas is gone and he still wants to be like him, shows that Gene was never himself and still has to try to be like Finny in order to be happy. Gene states, “Phineas created an atmosphere in which I continued now to live,” (pg. 202). Phineas had an impact on Gene whether he was alive or dead. What he thought was a normal friendship was actually a very unhealthy relationship between two people that was eventually ended by jealousy. Their friendship proves that in order to have a healthy relationship you must be true to who you are and stick to what you believe in.

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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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Throughout the novel, Gene was oblivious to the fact that Phineas wanted to friends with him, and that Phineas would be jealous of him. According to Gene, Finny was one of the best athletes in the school, and everything came easily to him. For example, when they were at a pool, Finny talked about how he could beat the freestyle record at Devon and without practice, Finny beat the record in seconds. Gene was very impressed and asked Finny to swim again in front of judges, but Finny declined and claimed he would not swim again. Gene couldn’t understand why his best friend wouldn’t want all the attention, but he went with it.

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Gene becomes more and more jealous of Finny’s identity and therefore has to fight an internal battle against himself as his desire to be like Finny grows stronger and eventually leads to a tragedy. Gene is jealous of Finny because he can get away with anything. However, jealousy isn’t just a random feeling, it is a desire to obtain something that others have - sometimes no matter what the cost is. In the beginning of the novel, Finny decides to wear his pink shirt that his mom sent him, even though it was against school rules. Gene thinks that Finny is going to get in trouble for wearing a non-school uniform, but instead begins to understand that, “Phineas could get away with anything” (Knowles 25).

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Phineas had absorbed it had taken it with him, and I was rid of it forever” (203). This is the resolution for Gene; he finally changes and moves on from his life in Devon and the death of his

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