Finny's Shattered Leg In John Knowles A Separate Peace

Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, once said, "Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory." Small moments in someone's life can change the way they see things and do things. They may mean nothing at the time, but eventually can be life changing. Theodor Seuss Geisel was trying to show that even if something may seem like nothing, it could be everything needed to change perspective. Knowles uses Finny's shattered leg to reveal to his readers that any moment in life can change a person's way of life forever in a couple of seasons. Through Finny's shattered leg and the changing seasons, John Knowles A Separate Peace illustrates that one small meaningless moment can change someone's life over the

After Phineas falls out of the tree he can't do all the things he once did and has wanted to do. Finny dreamed of going into the war, but after he broke his leg no one would let him go into the war. "I'll hate it everywhere if I'm not in this war! Why do you think I kept saying there wasn't one all winter? I was going to keep on saying it until two seconds after I got a letter from Ottawa or Chungking or someplace saying, 'Yes, you can enlist with us.'...Then there would have been a war"(Knowles 190). Phineas denies the war because of him not wanting to accept the reality that he can't be in the war. It was a dream and goal in Finny’s life to fight in the war but is unable to because of his leg. Knowles is using the idea of the war as a dream of Finny's making the reader see that one idea, and one movement can affect someone's life no matter how small it may seem at the moment, and it could still ruin someone's life. Finny struggles with the idea of not playing sports and doesn't want to give them up, "Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you're going to play them for me"(Knowles 85). Finny is trying to live through Gene by forcing him play sports for him. He was known as an athletic person and he has an insecurity of not being related or part of athletics so Phineas uses Gene to still have a connection to it. Finny played many sports and was amazing at ones he just

Phineas was amazing at sports, he was better than almost anyone but that all changed when the seasons started to change. Finny and Gene were hanging out at the pool and Finny decided to jump into the pool just for fun and tries to beats the school record, “Was he trying to impress me or something? Not tell anybody? When he had broken a school record without a day of practice?”(Knowles 44). Finny breaks a school record without a day of practice and makes it seem like it was no big deal and it was nothing at all. Phineas was athletic and thriving for the summer but as soon as the seasons start to change and it gets closer to Fall he becomes a cripple. Gene's one movement when they were in the tree caused Finny to fall changing the way some people looked at him. During the Summer people looked at Phineas like he was a god. Finny was great at sports but once Autumn came near and after the accident he lost the way people looked at him in a god like manner. People looked at Finny and saw him as the kid who fell out of the tree, they didn't look up to him anymore. People wanted and felt like they should help Phineas, they saw him as someone that needs people to assist him with the simplest of things. Later on when Finny and Gene are talking about the war and Leper Finny says, "Anyway...Then I knew there was a real war on'"(Knowles 164). When Finny comes back during