A Separate Peace Research Paper

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A Separate Peace Essay In the bildungsroman novel, A Separate Peace, John Knowles illustrates the friendship of two young boys, Gene Forrester and Phineas, also known as Finny. Gene and Finny attended Devon School, a boarding school in New Hampshire during WWII. The story revolves around Gene's internal conflicting feelings such as insecurity and jealousy of his best friend, Finny, which can be observed throughout the book as he reflects on his time at Devon. Ultimately, Gene’s jealousy gets a hold of him, leading to an action that changes both boys’ lives forever. Through Gene and Finny, Knowles demonstrates that insecurity shapes realities by distorting perspectives, resulting in alternate narratives to justify one’s actions. Gene’s insecurity, …show more content…
This statement suggests Gene’s attempt to justify bouncing the branch while diminishing Finny’s potential contributions to the war effort. Gene’s distorted perspective reflects Finny’s insecurities about his inability to participate in the war and his desire to justify his jealousy by constructing a reality where Finny’s potential is limited. When Finny states, “‘When you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.’ I didn’t think this was true, my seventeen years of experience had shown this to be much more false than true, but it was like every other thought and belief of Finny’s: it should have been true” (103). This suggests the optimistic view that Finny possesses. By viewing things in a positive light and denying the harsh realities, Finny creates an alternate distorted reality where love conquers all and negativity does not exist. This idealization ultimately causes denial, which affects the friendship they both share by causing him to be more vulnerable to Gene’s truth of the accident, as he believes that love always conveys
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