Ralph Emerson once said,” Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide” (370). In the novel, A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles readers are taken on a journey about a young boy named Gene Forrester who struggles finding himself. Gene faces these obstacles because he is determined to be his best friend, Finny in every aspect. The novel demonstrates how Gene finds that there is no separate peace after a challenging period at Devon, where he grows from a boy to a young man ready for war. In the novel readers see countless times where Gene conforms for Finny and by doing this Gene starts envying and imitating Finny.
Introduction: Gene is a 16 year old boy attending the Devon boarding school in the year 1942. He is an introvert who is trying to find himself throughout the book, A Separate Peace. Gene befriends a boy named Phineas, or Finny. Finny is the exact opposite of Gene, he is an extrovert who likes adventure and breaking rules. The two boys become close friends, but throughout their friendship Gene is jealous of Finny.
“There is time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide…” (Emerson p. 372-372). That’s exactly how Gene was in A Separate Peace by John Knowles in the setting of New Hampshire at Daven High School. Gene is jealous of his friend Finny and it affect him and his relationship with Finny. Peace is hard to get in this world but I think Gene found peace in the story by his conflicts. What is envy?
Finny who is developed into an idealized self-object is a very strong influence on Gene” (Flum 121). Through this quotation, the reader can see the small bit of change that begins to happen with Gene that over the course of the novel, develops into a fiasco that grows out of hand. Finny eventually has such an intense grasp over Gene that he even skips class with him on occasion, which is unusual for Gene whom is a character that is used to following the rules. On one such occasion that they skip class, Finny reveals to Gene that he considers him to be his best friend. Upon receiving this information, Gene had nothing in which to say back to Finny.
Portrayed in the movie Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless was a free spirit he did what he want when he wanted. Ivan and Chris were completely different people one was a formalist and the other was a maverick, but in the end it didn 't matter how different they were because they found true happiness in death. Ivan constantly tried to conform to society and its laws. Ivan subconsciously wanted to be an individual but he constantly suppressed those urges to fit in. He wanted to follow the path that society lead him on.
He begins to display envious thoughts. “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything”. He is specifically envious of Finny’s athleticism which in turn brings Finny popularity. “...Finny deliberately evaded an athletic honor. It was true that he had many already—the Winslow Galbraith Memorial Football Trophy for having brought the most Christian sportsmanship to the 20 game during the 1941-1942 season…”.
This strict moral belief eventually leads to chaos and suffering, and Huck is forced to leave. Perhaps by making Buck similar in age, and by making their names so similar, Twain shows that Huck could have ended up like Buck if he had followed the path of moral belief rather than his own practical wisdom. Buck, of course, dies, leaving Huck to cry over him. The images of the disaster stemming from the Grangerfords' and Shepherdsons' moral belief haunt Huck as he admits, "lots of times I dream about them (Boone,
He never stressed over what was going ahead around him; he only agonized over himself and needed everything to go his direction. William Wallace acknowledged unpleasant situations on the grounds that he made him feel invited and content with himself. A percentage of the fights he had were ones that helped individuals live more secure and not need to stress over another person returning to upset their towns. His primary center was to help other people win the fights and help other people experience their lives and spare the lives of their relatives. Amid the film “Braveheart” I don't generally see anybody that opposed the change the most.
In the book A separate peace by John Knowles he plays with the concepts of war and guilt . He knows that the war had banished the innocence of the boys. John plays with the feelings of the guilt taken over the boys. This feeling of war has influenced the actions of the boys Finny, Gene and Leper. John Knowles has used diction, imagery and figurative language to show the micro-level of the affects the everyday life of the boys in the story.
Towards the beginning of the novel, Finny’s strengths include his ability to stay optimistic, even after his life-threatening accident. When Finny converses with Gene afterwards, he tells Gene “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me…” (Knowles 85). Even after being told he probably won’t have the ability to walk again, a point one could describe as the lowest and most depressing of his life, Finny maintains his zest for life. He still encourages Gene to do the things that Finny no longer can because he wants to see someone else flourish, and most importantly: his friend. After Finny’s death, Gene even declares that “nothing … had broken [Finny’s] harmonious and natural unity” (Knowles 203).