A Separate Peace Literary Analysis

Friendship can be described as a mutual relationship requiring 2 people to facilitate trust and support to one another. However, friends can look at their relationships very diversely in level seriousness or respect for one another. In, A Separate Peace examines how differently friendship can viewed in the eyes of 2 individuals. The story looks through the eyes of Gene, a boy who has an internal struggle to find self-worth. He consistently compares himself to his so-called best friend Finny, a conflict of self-interest eventually leading to a gruesome injury. In the end, deception gets the best of one of the characters, leading to his demise. Although friendship is a partnership created in order to have understanding built upon trust and honesty,

The story is told through the mind and eyes of Gene Forrester, a young boy attending a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. Gene struggles with finding personal happiness and self-respect. His supposed “Best friend” Finny, is used as a benchmark in order to measure his shortcomings as a person. After Finny is injured in the tree accident caused by Gene shaking the branch the two were standing on together, He finds himself looking into a mirror to try on Finny’s cloths. Gene see’s a different reflection of himself,

“When I looked into the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become, no character out of daydreams. I was Phineas, Phineas to the life” (Knowles 62). Gene has a twisted view of himself where he is able to view himself as someone who he really isn’t. His jealousy proves to the reader how a friend can become fond of another to an extreme measure. While Finny is at home being treated for his injuries, he makes a phone call to Gene to check in how things were going. Finny was a star athlete at school, but he knows theres a good chance he will never see action again due to his complications. Seeing his trust in Gene, Finny asks Gene to play his sports for him if he is unable