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A Separate Piece Character Analysis

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In the novel A Separate Piece by John Knowles the author creates a main character that forces us to think about how our friends see us and who we really are. Gene, our protagonist is seen as a hard-working nice but quiet guy. He is always associated with his friend phineas little do people know the inside of his head and what he really thinks. Readers usually find themselves sympathizing with Gene because they can relate to his jealousy . In Genes head he is searching for an identity he doesn’t really know who he is our why he does certain things. He is also secretly jealous of his best friend, Phineas and his accomplishments. Deep down he despises him for being good at sports and for getting out of everything easy. He seems depressed at some points throughout the book of course if i had not read what he was thinking i would have never noticed . He sees himself as not good enough and wishing he was as good as Phineas. When he decides too try to be a valedictorian i think he just wants to beat Phineas at …show more content…

What i have noticed is that no matter how perfect a person is chances are they’re jealous of someone, nobody is perfect we are always striving to be better and people who are better than us make us jealous. The best thing you can do is talk to the friend you are jealous of because in the book Phineas is also jealous that Gene is doing so well in school. If they had discussed their jealousy towards each other chances are they would have laughed about it and Gene would have felt better knowing Phineas was not perfect and envied him. This book almost creates a sense of not being able to trust anyone because even your best friend could be jealous of you and could be potentially plotting against you. Miscommunication causes lots of problems if everyone just said what they were thinking the world would be a much safer and

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