A Separate Peace: Character Analysis

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The fictional novel written by John Knowles, A Separate Peace, takes place in a boarding school for high school boys, Devon School, during World War II; the novel tells the tragic experiences of the young boys who attend school there and the problems that occur between them and how they struggle with these issues. The two main characters in the story, Finny (Phineas) and Gene, are best friends, but a strain becomes placed on their friendship; Gene becomes envious of Finny and feels there is competition between them, even though there is no such competition. Gene’s envy leads to him intentionally causing Finny’s injury, an injury that caused Finny to receive a permanent physical disability; this disability lead Finny to falling into a state …show more content…
When Finny and Gene are on the beach and are about to go to sleep, Finny reveals that he considers Gene his best friend, but Gene does not respond. Gene was held back from responding by something “...which contains the truth”(Knowles 48). What held him back was his envy. Similar things happen in the real world as one friend becomes rude towards the other friend and ignores what they say or refuses to respond because they are so envious of the other. Gene felt at competition with Finny and he at one point felt they were even because Gene knew he held and academic advantage over Finny, but he later revoked the feeling and once again felt at competition with him. The reason for this is because he believed and had concluded that “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies”(Knowles 53). Often in the real world, when a person envies someone else, they may feel like they are trying to compete with them because they are doing what they can to beat them and better than them. All these things caused Gene’s envy to build up. Eventually, Gene became consumed with his envy and took out his jealous rage on Finny. One day when they were up in the tree, Gene intentionally jostled the branch to make
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