Cultural collision comes into place in John Knowles “A Separate Peace” and it never appears to be a good or bad thing. Gene reacts in this situation with his best friend, Finny, with envy and bitterness to transfer pieces of information about him that provide more depth into who Gene really is.
Gene's feeling of jealousy shows up in many occasions throughout the story. For instance, when Gene is trying on Finny's pink shirt, he mentioned, “I felt like some nobleman… But when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become… I was Phineas, Phineas to the life” (Knowles, 62). His envy toward Finny, Gene didn’t care about
