Friendship In A Separate Peace By John Knowles

In the novel, A Separate Peace, one of the main themes, friendship, is shown by the two main characters, Phineas “Finny” and Gene, having a little friendly competition that ends up weakening their friendship. Friendship is a bond between two or more people that care about each other. In the end, their friendship dissipated because of their lack of respect towards each other and the unwillingness to trust each other as their relationship developed over the years. This book takes place at Devon Academy, a boarding school in New Hampshire, in the summer of 1942 during World War II. Finny and Gene were classmates in their sophomore year and were attending the summer session for different reasons. Gene desired to further advance his studies,

Gene starts to become jealous of Finny’s traits. Gene starts questioning Finny’s motives to always push him well beyond the rules and his personal boundaries. Gene starts to take out his emotions and anger on Finny. Gene did not want Finny to realize that Gene was jealous of Finney’s ability to be free, have lots of fun and ignore the school rules. Due to Gene’s jealousy and lack of trust towards Finny, and Finny’s lack of respect for Gene, their friendship starts to go downhill quick. A major event takes place at the tree on the river when Gene loses his emotions, and jounced the branch that caused Finny to lose his balance and hit the ground below. This tragic fall caused Finny to shatter his leg leaving him bedridden for months, the future ability to walk, but no sports ever again. Gene had no remorse towards what he did to Finny. Shortly after, Gene jumps with no help into the river shortly after Gene fell trying to prove that he could jump from the tree without any help. Gene later felt remorse and pity for what he did but kept lying to Finny about their friendship and how they were still good friends and that he trusted Gene that he wouldn’t do such a

As the book goes on, Finny starts doubting his beliefs that Gene did not purposely jump on the branch causing him to fall. Gene starts to become overwhelmed due to the fact that he isn’t telling Finny the truth about what happened that day. Gene believes that if he was in Finny’s hands, Finny would tell him the truth about what really happened. Gene and Finny have what they call a court or a hearing to testify about what happened to Finny on the tree. At this point in the novel, their friendship is no longer there. They both had lost trust in each other and started questioning each other’s friendship, although Finny is still reassuring Gene that their friendship still exists. After Finny finally realized that it was Gene that jumped on the branch causing him to fall, Gene starts to feel bad about what he did and starts to feel pity and says, “Well, I know, and I’ll tell you what it is. It’s finny. You pity him. And if you don’t watch out he’s going to start pitying himself.” pg 160. Finny in the end falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his leg again. Finny is taken to a hospital to later set his leg. He dies due to marrow getting into his bloodstream and killing him. When Gene first heard the news he didn’t cry but felt like it was his own death. This wasn’t just the end of their friendship but also caused his friends life to be taken away.