ipl-logo

Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

791 Words4 Pages

In John Knowles', A Separate Peace, he shows us that friendship is a battle that expresses your true identity and is held together by rivalry. It requires commitment, love, and loyalty from both parties. Finny and Gene have major ups and down all throughout the novel but always find a way to make it through the rough patches and settles things calm, cool, and collectively in the end. The boys faced many problems such as Gene making Finny fall off the tree and also when Finny tried to make Gene not do well in his academics. This book teaches that friendship is a very strong bond. This strong and limitless bond ties together this entire story. A very important battle of Finny and Gene's friendship was when Gene felt that Finny was deliberately …show more content…

Gene becomes his most petty and vicious self. This is a battle for Finny and Gene because both of them battle with and come to learn their true identities. Gene realizes what he has done and feels terribly guilty. He is worried that Finny is going to realize that his fall was because of him. He is also worried that once Finny sees his face he will automatically accuse him. However surprisingly, Finny does not accuse him but explains that he lost his balance and reached back to grab on to Gene. Gene takes this as Finny wanting to drag him down with him. Gene turns this back against Finny because he is afraid of the truth. Once Gene admits to what he really did, Finny refuses to believe it. This is because he has a hard time accepting reality and he thinks that Gene is his best friend and he doesn't want to lose that. This is an expression of his loyalty to Gene. Surprisingly, even though Gene commits this awful act their friendship still stands …show more content…

When Finny sees Gene through the window of the hospital he makes the assumption that Gene is there to hurt him again. Finny is so angry when he sees Gene in his window. But the very next morning, Finny acts as if it had never happened and was ready to forgive him. Gene and Finny are once again tested against all odds. When Gene is notified of Finny's death he doesn't cry or show very much emotion. At Finny's funeral, Gene feels that in a way it is his funeral too because it is the end of an era. It is the end of the friendship between Finny and

Show More
Related
444 Words | 2 Pages

Finny playfully criticizes Gene 's clothing and is grateful for the lack of cleaning service. Gene replies that it is not a big loss considering the war, and he is Finny 's bed for him. The next day, Brinker will explode, wondering if Gene is ready to recruit, when he sees Finny. He starts making a joke on Gene 's "plane" - to kill Finny and get the room to himself - but Gene interrupts him and tells Finny about Brinker 's proposal to sign up. Finny 's harmless reaction leads Gene to realize that Finny does not want him to leave.

Read More
289 Words | 2 Pages

Guilt can be defined as feeling responsibility or remorse of one's offence or wrong. Gene Forrester is a prime example thaguilt is a theme prevalent in A Separate ace. The novel A Separate Peace, John Knowles is about Gene Forrester, a lonely intellectual, and his struggle against his own guilt of breaking his friens leg and running his future. His t is shown when he feels obligated to become what Phineas could now not be and when he postpones his own desires for the desires of Fin Obviously, Gene’s actions towards Finny as left him with much guilt.

Read More
894 Words | 4 Pages

After this point, compared to before it, Gene’s nature becomes much worse, darkening and filling with anger and guilt. Starting at the beginning of the novel, Finny and Gene’s relationship

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

Gene considers Finny to be his best friend. In this type of friendship there is an implied vow of trust, loyalty and sense of forever friendship "Finny could shine with everyone, he attracted everyone he met. I was glad of that too. Naturally. He was my roommate and my best friend" (Knowles 40).

Read More
1176 Words | 5 Pages

[Gene said]... ‘Of course you didn’t’ [Finny said]... ‘Of course you didn’t you damn fool’” (70). This shows Finny’s weaknesses because he will believe his closest friend didn’t purposefully hurt him because he has put so much trust into Gene.

Read More
791 Words | 4 Pages

Gene telling Finny this not only shows their improvement in trusting each other because before the incident Gene would never question Finny, especially about his health, but it also shows that he cares about Finny and doesn't like seeing him injured or hurt. Soon after this, Finny and Gene are talking, and Finny brings up teachers. (#163) "Naturally, I don't believe in teachers (he came across a few paces), but I do believe it's important to believe in you." Finny telling Gene this is really important to their friendship because he's never told Gene anything like this, and it shows that Finny trusts Gene more than anyone. These are the last things showing Finny and Gene's

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

One way Gene and Finny’s relationship is affected is Gene has his belief after going to war that it’s full of lies and that’s what affects the relationship between him and his best friend. The novel states,” wars were not made by generation and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart” (193). This quote shows how Gene feels not only about war, but also about Finny too. That evidence is what happened to Gene and Finny’s relationship. Another way their relationship is affected is when Gene started to fight the enemies he had developed while being in war and it harmed him and Finny’s relationship.

Read More
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).

Read More
1701 Words | 7 Pages

Gene believes that Finny and he hate each other, until he realizes Finny’s pureness, which Gene can not stand. At first, Gene believes that Finny wants to exceed him, and that the two are rivals. Everyone at Devon likes Finny. The teachers adore him, the students look up to him, the athletes aspire

Read More
741 Words | 3 Pages

Gene wanted Finny to get in trouble for what Finny had did, which had worn his tie as a belt. He hated that Finny got away with almost anything that he did wrong and wanted to go down someday. Another way their relationship is affected is through Gene’s lack of self-finding and liking. Gene hated that he never was like Finny, so he started to acting and do things that Finny did. That caused a lot of jealousy, guilt, and self-destruction from throughout the relationship that Gene and Finny had.

Read More
791 Words | 4 Pages

He still encourages Gene to do the things that Finny no longer can because he wants to see someone else flourish, and most importantly: his friend. After Finny’s death, Gene even declares that “nothing … had broken [Finny’s] harmonious and natural unity” (Knowles 203). Since Gene exclaims this, the reader understands that Finny

Read More
1268 Words | 6 Pages

In John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, the main character, Gene Forrester, undergoes a traumatic journey to develop the aspects necessary for coping through adulthood. This novel is a flashback to the year of 1942, when Gene attends his final year at Devon High School, in New Hampshire. Although Gene appears to be Finny’s best friend, he follows in Finny’s steps so that his personality clones to be like Finny’s. Finny exposes new experiences that provoke Gene’s development into adulthood. As Gene engages in new experiences, he soon realizes that he envies Finny’s abilities.

Read More
462 Words | 2 Pages

Part of friendship consists of accepting a friend's shortcomings. This theme, generally associated with A Separate Peace, means that friends should embrace each other's imperfections. Some people seem perfect with no flaws at all while others seem hopelessly imperfect with many flaws, but the truth is everyone makes mistakes. Friends should accept each other's shortcomings because unrealistic expectations can damage a relationship. In A Separate Peace, both Finny and Gene had difficulty accepting a friend's shortcomings.

Read More
582 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1024 Words | 5 Pages

Therefore, Gene always tried to make Finny jealous and that pushed him to hurt him in the

Read More

More about Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

Related Topics

Open Document