In John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, Gene is portrayed as an average boy in high school. The novel takes place during World War II, when Gene is in summer school and the following school year. The story has very few characters, most of them being Gene’s peers. Some of these characters include Leper, Brinker, Chet, Quackenbush, and Phineas. Phineas, or Finny for short, is Gene’s best friend. He is the other main character of the story. The main focus of the story is the relationship between Gene and Finny. Gene’s relationship with Finny slowly deteriorates because of his resentment and dependency on Finny, and his simultaneous love and hate of Finny.
First, Gene’s resentment of Finny is one of the main reasons why their relationship in the story does not last. At the beginning of the story, the reader already gets the sense that Gene is jealous of Finny’s athletic ability. One example of this is when Finny invents blitzball. "He had unconsciously invented a game which brought his own athletic gifts to their highest pitch…I never saw him tired, never really winded, never overcharged and never restless" (Knowles 31). This quote demonstrates how Gene is aware of Finny’s athletic dominance over everyone el
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Patch-Withers, the stern Summer Session Master, found Finny’s antics very amusing. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1960. After realizing his envy of Finny, Gene begins to imagine that Finny also envies him for his academic achievements to help him avoid feeling shame about being jealous of Finny. There was no harm in envying your best friend a little" (Knowles 18). I was not of the same quality as he" (Knowles 51). Only after Finny’s death does Gene realize his true love of Finny, but his resentment and dependency kept him from seeing this until it was too late. After this, Finny is furious with Gene, and soon after Finny dies during surgery. One other thing Gene is jealous of is Finny’s ability to get away with anything he does wrong. In this quote, Gene resents Finny because he got away with wearing a pink shirt to school, and even Mr. He often shows how he wants to live as a part of Finny, and abandon his own self. I couldn’t help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal.
Lastly, Finny is Gene’s friend and enemy at the same time, and the object of his "war". Now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us.
Approximate Word count =
879
Approximate Pages =
4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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