A Separate Peace Gene And Finny's Relationship

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John Knowles, the author of A Separate Peace, was born in 1926. Like Gene and Phineas, Knowles was 16-years-old and attended a boarding school in New Hampshire. In the book Knowles mentions the U.S. Army Air Force. This has a special meaning to the author because after he graduated, Knowles joined the U.S. Army’s Air Force Aviation Cadet Program. In A Separate Peace, while Gene has conflicting feelings about Finny and their relationship, he is still more emotionally mature.
Throughout A Separate Peace Gene has many conflicting emotions towards Phineas. As the beginning of the book starts off, Phineas tries to weasel his way out of wearing the school tie for a belt. This trait in Finny is something Gene envies in his friend. Gene starts to get …show more content…
Finny has this mindset that everyone has to win (35). What he doesn't get, however, is that whenever someone wins, the adversary has to lose. Gene, being the mature 16-year-old that he is, knows this, unlike Finny. As a mere 16-year-old at Devon High School, in New England, Gene is emotionally mature for his age. Teenage boys usually don't like to sit down and study, or admit their mistakes. Gene on the other hand, has a guilty conscience if he doesn’t get it off of his chest. When Gene went to see Finny at his home on the outskirts of Boston, he admitted to being the cause of Finny’s tragic fall (70). My definition of emotional maturity is someone who acts older than what they are and with more of a knowledge on what their actions will do. To me, one of the most mature things a person can possibly do is risk his/her life for their country. Numerous times throughout the book, Gene hinted that he was going to join the army. Towards the end of A Separate Peace Gene watches the Army Air Force train under the sun with the P.T. instructor's voice yell out the Army’s numerals “ Hut! Hew! Hee! Hore!”(203). On the page continuing that Gene describes his feet a couple weeks later “falling into step under the influence of an even louder voice and a stronger sun” (204). This description implies that Gene, did in fact, end up enlisting in the army. As Gene has shown all of these acts I conclude that Gene acts older than what he is, making him, in my eyes, emotionally
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