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Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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In John Knowles A Separate Peace he writes about the transition from childhood to adolescence.In this coming of age novel taking place in the 1950’s two teenage boys Finny and Gene form a relationship based on fear and adventure. The two opposite teens, finny a outgoing basically perfect teen and gene being a lesser perfect balances out the relationship between the two.The fact that they are somewhat minor opposites aren’t the only thing that brings the two together.Finny’s fear of anything bad or evil and gene’s fear of hitting rock bottom forms a relationship between the two teens which sets the stage for us all. Finny’s fear of anything bad or evil is shown all throughout the book. He has this thing where he believes everything is good that everything is fine and he finds the good in people. He refuses to see the bad in others . Gene explains to Finny it was him who caused him to fall off the branch Finny argues “ Of course you didn’t …”(70). You then see that finny does not want to see the truth of the matter that Gene didn’t have his best interest at hand.He also doesn’t want to believe there really is a war going on he argues to gene” Do you …show more content…

After a game of blitzball Gene and Finny go back to the dorm and gene begins to study finny then comments “ You work too hard”(51) and “ Nobody is surer of graduating..”(51). Showing that he works his butt off to make it to the top to be above everyone when specifically he wants to be above finny. His jealousy is shown a lot throughout the story but in a minor way such as when he hopes finny will get caught when he uses the devon school tie as a belt gene is sure “ this time he wasn’t..”(27).Gene eventually realizes finny gets away with everything and makes him furious. Events such as those further lead to the biggest event when he pushed Finny off the branch of the

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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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1732 Words | 7 Pages

Tyler Chang Mr. Gurrieri English 1 Honors; Class 4 16 November, 2017 Growth and Change in A Separate Peace John Knowles is an award winning author of the novel, A Separate Peace, tells a story of a few college kids and how they began to change in a short period of time. With a world war going on behind the scenes, Finny and Gene, who are best friends, start a war between themselves. Finny, who is an athletic, popular, and taunting person pushes Gene, who is intelligent, unathletic, and lonely out of his comfort zone to try new things. Gene continues to follow Finny until one day he has had enough of him. Both wars progress and grow larger and relationships begin to break apart.

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871 Words | 4 Pages

John Knowles, author of A Separate Peace, uses both character development and setting to support his decision in selecting the title. He uses the main characters of Gene and Phineas (Finny) and their troubled yet deeply bonded friendship as a way to illustrate the separate peace that takes place both within the boys themselves and in the friendship that is built between the two. Knowles also uses the setting of the novel to demonstrate the vast difference between the peaceful Devon School grounds and the war raging outside of the school’s walls. The title, A Separate Peace, as chosen by the author is symbolic of the main characters, Finny and Gene’s, struggle to find peace within themselves and with each other while set in a place that significantly contrasts the events of the real world.

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683 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1076 Words | 5 Pages

Like childhood, he easily brings fun to Gene and the other boys. “When I got back I found him in the middle of a snowball fight in a place called the Fields Beyond”(Knowles 144). The power of Finny is the power to bring people together for enjoyment. The boys are wrapped in the need for an escape out of haunted reality. That is the lure of Finny that makes it hard to accept the future.

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1210 Words | 5 Pages

Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled side-ways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud" (60). Later in the novel we find out that Gene had done this out of jealousy for finny, so he felt the need to ruin him in order to be on top. Finny on the other hand, takes on a state of

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631 Words | 3 Pages

World War 2, started on September 1st, 1939, and affected many. Children, teens, parents, and nevertheless, soldiers. Experiencing a tragic event such as WW2, has many levels of emotions and fear. Novels, movies, and articles, portray feelings just as well as the ones affected. Gene Forrester, along with all his friends, experience many conflicts and “wars” among themself in the novel A Separate Peace.

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Finny does not remember Gene’s rampacious action, which caused the accident. Prior to the fall, Gene thought Finny was his enemy, and that Finny was trying to sabotage his academics. Gene realizes he was being paranoid about him, so he regretfully thinks, “‘I thought we were competitors! It was so ludicrous I wanted to cry’” (Knowles 66).

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287 Words | 2 Pages

In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, there are many themes found. This story takes place in the past when Gene and Phineas were best friends in their private school called Devon. Throughout this story, Gene goes through an extreme coming of age. There are many lessons Gene has learned during this period. As Gene takes us through the story of his life, we can find many things that have changed in him.

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1174 Words | 5 Pages

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is the coming of age story of a high-school boy named Gene and his best friend, Phineas, also known as Finny. Over the course of the novel, readers witness Gene becoming increasingly jealous of Finny, leading to the climax of the story, when Gene jounces his friend from the top of a tree. This would cripple Finny, leaving the former star-athlete unable to perform. In A Separate Peace, Finny’s fall down a flight of stairs at the end of the novel, that would eventually lead to his death was not an accident, but instead an act of suicide. This suicide was a result of Finny’s constant state of innocence, the trust he had kept in Gene, and his realization of Gene’s involvement in his fall.

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737 Words | 3 Pages

Making friends can come naturally, but maintaining it can be difficult. In the book, A Separate Peace, Knowles shows how friendship can become negative instead of positive. Gene and Phineas are two boys that attend Devon School during World War II. They have opposite personalities since Gene is smart and Phineas is athletic, but despite that, they’re best friends. But then Gene misunderstands Phineas and causes him to break their friendship by making Phineas fall off the limb, which resulted in a broken leg meaning that sports and enlisting to the army were gone.

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757 Words | 4 Pages

Moments later he explains how “there was no harm in envying your best friend a little” which is obviously incorrect because if you are so close to someone you shouldn't envy there life, because you are one of the biggest parts about it. Finny’s whole life consists of Devon, sports, and Gene. Yet Gene believes that Finny is unblemished and will never make a mistake if he didn't want too. When Gene is playing Blitzball with Finny he is struck with a realization “ in such a nonstop game he also had the natural advantage of a flow of energy which I never saw interrupted.

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873 Words | 4 Pages

The novel, “A Separate Peace, by John Knowles shows readers the rocky friendship between two young boys, Gene and Finny. The novel guides readers through the complicated friendship between the duo during their senior year of high school, and the lifelong friendship they have created. The audience takes away from the story a different outlook on what it means to be a true friend. Firstly, Gene had a distorted outlook on friendship.

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582 Words | 3 Pages

Finny and Gene’s Friendship Friendship is very important in this story. Friendship is very important for a person’s well-being. In this book titled A Separate Peace by John Knowles the reader learns a lot about friendship in this book.

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1024 Words | 5 Pages

Charles Kuralt once said, “ The love of family and the admirations of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.” This quote shows how jealousy and popularity aren’t as important as relationships in your life. In the book, A Separate Peace, Gene has different priorities than relationships. Gene, a young boy who attends Devon boarding school, goes through many different trials along his grade school journey. He faces problems with friends and school life during the time of World War two and the draft being in full swing.

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