Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

In John Knowles’s coming of age story, A Separate Peace, the author forces Gene to face the realities of adulthood and the war, but first he must shed his childhood, represented by the character Finny. Despite Gene’s desire to mature, he finds himself unable to make a clean break from Finny. This leads to a love-hate relationship that Gene must resolve before moving forward. Finny represents Gene’s childhood by preventing him from growing up and moving on to something else. In the mind of a child like Finny, war does not exist. The adult in Gene knows he has to grow up because he will have to go to the war. Finny always talked Gene into doing things like jumping off the tree breach and Gene responded with, “What am I doing up here anyway?

They are different from each other.“Finny’s own mind, which was such an opposite from mine”(p.34). “Finny could shine with everyone, he attracted everyone he”(p.40). He forms a plan to separate himself, his plan fails and he still goes along. One of the main things he goes along with is Finny’s club. He went to every meeting even though he does not want to. He even stats “acting against every instinct of my nature, I went without a thought of protest”(p.34). Gene cannot resist even though he knows he should. Separation does happen, but he still feels connected to Finny. “When talking about Finny I could not use the past tense”(p.202). He goes back to the school to see where he was served from childhood. Even though he hated Finny, he says “sometimes I found it hard to remember his treachery, sometimes I discovered myself thoughtlessly back into affection for him, again”(p.55). Gene still feels connected to

Instead of just following him he realizes, “ I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become part of Phineas”(p.85). After Finny came back from breaking his leg, Gene becomes putty in his hands. He does what he tells him. He cannot tell him no. Finny makes he do all sorts of childish shenanigans and he goes along with them. Since sports were done for Finny, he made Gene take his place. They relied on each other. Gene tutored Finny in school and Finny tutored Gene in