Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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It all started as being a proud friend, Gene and Finny from A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, were best friends who recognized their differences, but were still always proud of each other. Then, it turned into admiration, Gene would find himself appreciating every single thing Finny did, wondering how he could be so perfect. Eventually, Gene recognized this perfection as something that he needed to be, no matter what it took. Gene’s jealousy had grown so great that when his confidence was shaken too much, he shook the tree branch that held his perfect best friend’s life, ruining Finny’s life. When Gene let the jealousy get to him, he finally snapped, causing Finny’s leg to snap, and their genuine friendship to snap along with it. As Gene grows …show more content…
That is why when Gene subconsciously decided he needed the need to possess that hypnotical power, the power to always be good, he did not think anything was wrong with it. Admiration turned into jealousy, and that jealousy turned into a goal, a goal which became obsessive. Gene did not ever realize how bad his obsession with Finny was until it was too late. In his mind, he needed justification as to why he was feeling the strong need to be not just as good as, but better than, Finny. At Devon, it would have been very rare for somebody as kind as Finny to be doing such a thing with no motivation, so Gene had convinced himself that Finny was out to get him. He thought that his friendship was really just a two-way jealousy battle disguised as two boys hanging out and having fun. The only way he can justify his own jealousy is thinking, “you are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. Finny had deliberately set out to wreck [your] studies” (Knowles 53). Gene let this thought fully consume him. Whenever Finny wanted to hang out, Gene thought it was to make sure he could not
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