Primary And Secondary Process In A Separate Piece By John Knowles

The novel A Separate Piece by John Knowles tells the story of Gene and Phineas as they go through their final year at an all boys’ boarding school located in the hills of New England. The story takes place around the summer of 1942, where Gene, Finny and a small group of their classmates are in the completion of junior year by taking accelerated summer courses to be transferred into their final academic year in boarding school. In the midst of completing their final years at Devon school of New England, Gene, Phineas and their friends go through a number of experiences that will define them for the remainder of their lives. Throughout this essay I will be concentrating on how primary and secondary processes factor into the personalities of

Unlike everyone else who at first relied on their secondary process to assure that they would not find themselves hurt or find themselves in trouble, Finny was the daredevil always acting on impulse instead thinking things through. By primarily focusing on his instincts he had a style of manipulating others into momentarily pushing aside their secondary process and allowing the primary process to be the acting force. One example of Finny’s manipulation would be when Gene found himself on top of the tree attempting to dive into the lake. “What was I doing up here? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this?”(17). Gene, who is known for following rules and not letting impulse rule him like Finny found himself unable to resist;, even when he was on top of the tree ready to leap into the water his secondary process attempted to persuade him from jumping, but with the aid of Finny it was his primary process that ended up leading him to do things he wouldn’t normally do. We could also say that Finny realizes that he’s Gene’s primary process. The moment Gene completed his jump into the water, Finny than states, “I’m good for you that way. You have a tendency to back away from things