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Gene's Jealousy In John Knowles A Separate Peace

584 Words3 Pages

Emerson states that “envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide” (370). In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, New England. Gene is a follower. He would like to be in a bad situation just to be in one, He is jealous of Finny and insecure to the point where it drives him crazy. A Separate Peace shows how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him, affect his relationship with Finny, and his lack of peace.

Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him. Gene is mostly affected emotionally rather than affected physically, “I looked for and finally found his pink shirt.. It’s high, somewhat stiff collar against my neck, the wide cuffs touching my wrists” (Knowles 62). That piece of evidence explains how emotionally he was affected by guilt and he is continued by wearing his clothes. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affects him by him ending up losing his real best friend. “... this enemy who never attacked that way- if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy (Knowles 204). Gene’s jealousy was so bad that the life of his best friend came to an end. After he was injured multiple times. Gene’s …show more content…

When Gene admits to making Finny fall off the tree and shatter his leg it causes conflict. “”Of course you didn’t do it. You damn fool. Sit down, you damn fool.” “Of course I did!”” (Knowles 70).Gene’s jealousy got the best of him and he made Finny fall out of a tree and injure himself and it made them get into an argument. Gene being so jealous messed up a great relationship. Finny was never in competition but Gene was. “Phineas’ imaginary worlds create peace separate from the world at war, and he invites others, especially Gene into this peaceful sphere” (Alton). This piece of evidence explains how Gene’s envy got in control of him and that Finny never thought of their friendship as a competition. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny lastly affected Gene’s lack of

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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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Their relationship was affected due to FInny viewing Gene as a part of him. Knowles tells us, “ aid alone had never seemed to him in the category of help…Phineas had thought of me as an extension of himself” (Knowles 17). This shows that Phineas was close enough to Gene that any time Gene helped it was like his conscious. Gene envied Finny but later on in the novel we see the advancement of maturity in Gene. The relationship of Gene and Finny was affected by Gene conforming to Finny and Gene maturing.

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After Finny shatters his leg, Gene goes back to his room and tries on Finny’s clothes. As he studies himself in the mirror, Gene notices he looks similar to Finny and states, “I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief, but it seemed, standing there in Finny’s triumphant shirt, that I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again” (62). At this moment, Gene

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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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While Gene was one of the best students, he was unappreciated. On the other hand, Finny thrived in sports and social skills. Gene was jealous of Finny not only for his outstanding performance in sports, but also, because Finny was a crowd favorite in everything. “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help but envy that a little, which was perfectly normal.

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As a result, he forms a false narrative in which Finny has malicious intent, which is detrimental to their relationship. Additionally, Gene realizes that his connection to Phineas is due to envy and imitation, which means that in his maturity, they were not truly friends. Alton states, "However, as Gene matures, he starts to develop his own identity. He recognizes his attraction to deadly things and, more significantly, he writes a narrative about his relationship with Phineas, revealing the flaws in his own character which led to Phineas's death" (Alton). In his mature state, Gene realizes his flawed relationship with Phineas, meaning that they were not really friends, and it was more of an envious imitation.

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“ I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying him for that a little, which is perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying your best friend a little” (Knowles 9). Gene had convinced himself that there was no harm in envying Finny, at least a little. Gene failed to recognize that he envied Finny for this far more than a little.

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822 Words | 4 Pages

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide” (Emerson). The character Gene learns of this not until after many trials and a great tragedy. In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the idea of self-reliance is greatly stressed. The novel A Separate Peace conveys how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him, how Gene’s envy and imitation affect their relationship with Finny, and Gene’s achievement of peace. The envy towards and imitation of Funny greatly affect Gene.

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Although gene envy and imitation affects him and his relationship with finny,Gene still achieves his peace. The first reason is when gene reaches his peace only after being away from phineas. For example,”an atmosphere in which I continued now to live,a way of sizing up the world with erratic and entity personal reservation(194)”(Alton).This example shows how gene reaches his peace when being separated away from finny. It describes him as being in a new atomsphere. It also shows how finny life and death taught him a way of living.

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1418 Words | 6 Pages

At this point, Gene is starting to lose trust in Phineas, and the reader sees that the friendship between him and Phineas is becoming strained. However, after Phineas breaks his leg, Gene feels genuinely guilty, and he realizes that Phineas never had any ill-disposed intentions. From then on, Gene constantly sought to visit Finny and apologize to him, and he tries to work together with Finny. He also starts trusting Finny a lot more, which is evident when Finny lies to him that "[Fat old men] cooked up this war fake" (106) and Gene believes him. This situation shows how Gene is becoming much more agreeable with Finny.

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1239 Words | 5 Pages

They are supposed to be best friends, but Gene envies him and thinks he is trying to make him look bad. After Finny’s accident, Gene struggled with guilt and his life was changed because of it. “I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was. One evening when I was dressing for dinner in this numbed frame of mind, an idea occurred to me, the first with any energy behind it since Finny fell from the tree. I decided to put on his clothes” (Knowles 29).

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652 Words | 3 Pages

After Finny’s accident they became a lot closer. Alton states,” Phineas, too, feels their connection: after the accident, he informs Gene he must become an athlete in Finny’s stead. ``(Alton) Finny’s accident caused him to open up to Gene and reveal what his dream was. When Finny asked him to help achieve his goal Gene thought of himself as an extension of Finny. When Finny learned the truth their friendship was broken.

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741 Words | 3 Pages

One way Gene’s jealousy and imitation is an effect on his relationship with Finny is that it caused lots of jealousy towards Finny because of his abilities, appearance, and actions. An example of this is when Gene stated “He had 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).

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769 Words | 4 Pages

“Then a second realization broke as clearly and bleakly as dawn at the beach. Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies.” (24) Gene thinks this after going to the beach with Finny and ruining his grade because of the lack of studying due to his time spent having fun. This is just one example of how Gene thinks there's some sort of ongoing competition between themselves, causing Gene to be extremely jealous, self concerning and over analyzing about every situation instead of just enjoying the fun the two have as Finny does. Even though Gene acts like this he is still very friendly and a good person.

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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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