Tragedy In A Separate Peace

The Essence of Tragedy: Loss and Lesson

Every tragedy has a lesson equal in significance to its sorrow. When our lives are faced with perilous situations beyond our control, it is up to us to take from them what we need to. By distancing ourselves from the initial feelings of misery, we are able to take away lessons that we would not recognize otherwise. The use of tragic elements in A Separate Peace impacts the audience in a way other novels cannot, by using tragedy to invoke deeper meaning and sympathy within the reader, which in turn instills teachings that cannot be forgotten. The struggles that Leper, Finny, and Gene face as they try to find their place in war and society amidst the belligerence of a much deeper conflict prove that an

Gene’s inner turmoil is first expressed when he begins to weigh his and Finny’s strengths and weaknesses. He infers “I could see through that. I was more and more certainly becoming the best student in the school; Phineas was without question the best athlete, so in that way we were even. But while he was a very poor student I was a pretty good athlete, and when everything was thrown into the scales they would in the end tilt definitely toward me” (Knowles 55). In Gene’s mind, there is a battle between friendship and envy, and his jealousy is apparent; his desire for Finny’s athleticism and charm makes him sacrifice love without knowing it. He tells himself that he is a better person in the grand scheme of things, but a small part of him always knows that Finny is not even comparable to him, and is what keeps him in this battle of consciousness. Jealousy plants a seed of hatred in Gene, and in all of us, and hatred initiates war. When Gene jounces the limb, it is an act that he does almost unknowingly, which alludes to his competitiveness vying through into his actions. His instinctive motion is captured when he describes “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb… with unthinking sureness I moved out on the limb and jumped into the river, every trace of my fear of this forgotten” (Knowles 59). Gene’s second battle of conscience is in the tree, but this time thought manifests itself in action. He again compromises friendship due to jealous impulse, and his relief after pushing Finny shows that the battle inside his mind is finished, or so he thinks. This brief catharsis signals the end of one battle, but the beginning of