A Separate Peace By John Knowles: A Character Analysis

Figuring out who someone really is can be difficult, but usually it is worth going through the struggle. In the novel A Separate Peace, John Knowles fashions a story about a group of young boys living at a World War II era boarding school, who discover the dark and dreary side of their adolescence. The author John Knowles emphasizes the close relationship of Gene and Finny who get along with one another until Gene purposely harms Finny. As the plot progresses, however, Finny and Gene mature and learn to forgive one another’s faults and essentially become friends again. Friendship may be perceived as simply sharing something in common; through Finny and Gene, Knowles demonstrates that friendship is much deeper and built on the principles of …show more content…
For example, as Gene went up to climb up the “tremendous” tree, he entered “a mild state of shock”, and ruminated to himself, “What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?” (Knowles 17). Gene constantly struggles to fight his urge to follow Finny to the end of the world, to wherever he takes him, yet he does it due to the confidence he has in Finny. Furthermore, when finny had broken his leg and had returned to Devon, he knew his sports career was over but still trusted Gene to replace him because he always wanted the best for him. Finny calmly demanded “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,” and I [Gene] 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 a part of Phineas” (Knowles 87). Similarly, Gene portrays his desire of Finny to become a part of him as well as his trust by allowing Finny to train him to be the best athlete at Devon. In addition to this Gene also implies that he desired to live for Gene to have a meaning of “purpose” in his life. At the novel progresses, Gene decides to confront Finny about the truth, the real truth about everything previous. Gene remorsefully tries to explain to Finny that his action was a “blind impulse” but Finny replies, …show more content…
An example for this would be when Finny attempts and successfully breaks the “100 yards freestyle” at Devon. Gene excitingly tells Finny that he could try again the day after and officially break the record, yet Finny simply “just wanted to see” if he was able to pull it off instead of replacing his name on the plaque and “doing it in public” (Knowles 45). This illustrates the growing sense of sincerity in their relationship due to the respect Gene has for Finny’s decision to humble himself and to dismiss his accomplishment to the world. Furthermore, when Brinker suggests enlisting in the army, Gene agrees to come along as well. However, when Finny returns to Devon, Gene pretends that he was never really going to because “[Finny] He needed me [...] He wanted me around” (Knowles 108). Knowles tries to demonstrate that even thus Gene greatly desired to enlist in the army, he believed that his friend was more important. Subsequently, after the incident of Finny’s death, Military troops enter the Far Common searching for parachute riggers. During this brief time, Brinker thinks about how life would be different for Leper if he been assigned to be a Parachute Rigger, however Gene tries to forget about his statement and tries diverting Brinker, “Why talk about something you can’t do anything about?” as he then contemplates to himself “None of them ever accused

Show More

A Separate Peace By John Knowles: A Character Analysis

A Separate Peace By John Knowles: Character Analysis