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Friendships 'Internal Growth In John Knowles A Separate Peace'

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Jaelyn Jones Mrs.Adcock English II Hour 6 29 April 2024 Changes Internal growth happens inevitably, whether a person is striving for that change, or an individual will continue stagnantly letting life create its lessons to make that self-transformation. Many life teachings are to be displayed in A Separate Peace, all while World War II was present for the youth to endure. John Knowles' book had many lessons to learn involving the love of friendships, the complexity of self-reflectance, and the unavoidable changes in life. Friendship creates a strong connection between two people. Bonds can last through many things, and may even blind somebody from seeing betrayal. Gene and Phineas are two young boys who are best friends. The boys admire one another …show more content…

Creating much controversy, Phineas tries his best to avoid facing the truth about Gene's disloyalty that cost him his athletic dreams and life. Many confrontations and lessons happened between Gene and Finny, all while the two continued to love each other. Soul-searching is a hard journey in an adolescent's life. “It was only after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak”. Gene is a subtle, less confrontational person who more or less goes along with situations at the beginning of the book. This causes many avoidable issues with Gene, which soon leads him to assume Finny has the same mutual rivalry with him. Finny continues to show honesty and loyalty to Gene under competitive circumstances, leaving him victim to the tree incident. Gene realizes his own insecure mistakes caused him to end his best friend's life, which he knew he could not cry over. Reflectance is present in Gene after many tragic events, leading him to accept and forgive himself. Gene evolves in many ways throughout this book and grows internally from certain dire events. Gene, in the beginning, went along with many foolish decisions made by

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Finny is so hurt because he cannot believe that Gene would deliberately hurt him. Finny tells Gene that he understands that Gene acted without really thinking, and Finny forgives Gene. This shows the reader the true personality of Finny. He is kind, carefree, reckless, real, and loves unconditionally. He cannot accept that anyone close to

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His once glowing feelings for Finny begin to change as he stands in the tree during one of the first meetings, questioning “What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?” (32.) The continuation of these meets in the tree triggers Gene to make the snap decision that changes himself for the

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Through the thoughts and actions that Gene chooses to show in his flashback, this paper will draw the conclusion that Gene’s war with Finny was made up in his head in order to give himself a solid enemy to defeat. Because of this, he contributed to, if not caused, Finny’s injury. Once solidified, the concrete theory will allow a reader to more profoundly understand the incidents leading up to Finny’s “fall” off the tree limb and why this explains the ending of the book and Gene as a whole. Gene’s jealousy of Finny is evident in Gene’s reactions to Finny’s accomplishments. Finny is a natural athlete who performs exceptionally in school sports.

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Throughout this book Gene is a very confusing character with a complex mind. At the very beginning of this novel Gene is portrayed as a very competitive and jealous person. You only feel this way because in a sense he feels threatened by Finny, his best friend. Which is one of the “confusing” aspects of this book because you would imagine that if someone is your

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He is very intelligent, however he is also extremely insecure. As a result of his insecurities, Gene becomes frustrated and allows himself to be overcome by his self-hatred, which causes him to harm himself and act unreasonably insecure. Gene is not inherently evil, rather he becomes corrupt as a result of his insecurities which provoke confusion and vice. Gene allows himself to obsess over Finny’s success and loses sight of his own self. Throughout the beginning of the book, Gene shows his personal insecurities through self-hatred and envy towards Finny, who he views as perfect.

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Gene and Finny, two best friends and roommates, live vicariously through each other. Finny, known for his physical prowess, must live vicariously through Gene’s ability to compete physically after his crippling injury. Gene, on the other hand, lives vicariously through Finny by finding fulfillment and happiness in losing his own self to Finny’s. Throughout the novel the struggle continues even after Finny’s tragic death, leaving Gene to live in the atmosphere in which Finny created for them. Perhaps Gene is only able to reestablish his own identity later in life, despite it still being inferior to Finny’s

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Although Gene was always jealous of his best friend, Gene felt guilty for what he did to Finny. “The Tree” is the center of Gene’s worst memories, and his worst decisions. That tree saved a life, and it also killed one. Gene didn’t feel terrible when he pushed Finny down the tree. When he broke his friend’s foot, and found out the damage meant Finny could no longer participate in sports, he showed a side we have not seen before.

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Gene’s outburst in the tree was completely natural. Gene knew everything he could learn from Finny, to leave Finny alone would stand as a testament, in Gene’s mind, to Gene’s shortcomings. Gene had become lost in the past and in the mind of Finny as shown by Knowles with “"It's you, pal," Finny said to me at last, "just you and me." He and I started back across the fields… We were the best of friends at that moment”

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Gene first begins with a simple jealousy for his friend. That jealousy leads him to yearn to become like Finny, which in Gene’s eyes is considered godlike. Later, Gene’s desire becomes so strong that he ruins Finny’s life in order to take his identity, but at the end realizes, that he destroyed Finny’s life for nothing. Therefore, beware of desires, since they could lead to catastrophic events that might change the life of everyone

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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).

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He arrived at his house and when he told him it was him that moved the branch, Finny didn’t believe him and told him to leave. Finally, Finny came back to Devon and they both knew the damage that had been done because of Gene’s envy. They never regained their friendship and were both broken from what happened. Over all, envy is a horribly conquering sensation that can take over a person’s right state of mind in a matter of a very short period of time. Gene was definitely a character that many people can relate to in real life and can compare situations to.

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In Finny’s case, he comes to accept a reality not of his creation. Gene goes from viewing Phineas as his rival to realizing that Finny was the only person who never hated and who was never afraid. Brinker and Leper see the truth of war after having such a fascination with the idea of having one to fight in and all the opportunities it could

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(Knowles, 183) Finny accepts Gene’s apology allowing him to achieve peace and showed him that he was all right with Gene’s actions. Even though Finny allowed Gene to achieve peace, Gene will never forgive himself. After Gene finished attending his lessons he went to the infirmary where Dr. Stanpole had news for him. It was Finny, he died. “This at last penetrated my mind…Phineas had died from the narrow of his bone flowing down his blood stream to his heart.”

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Gene doesn’t understand that it was actually his fault that he failed

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