An Analysis Of John Knowles A Separate Peace

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is the coming of age story of a high-school boy named Gene and his best friend, Phineas, also known as Finny. Over the course of the novel, readers witness Gene becoming increasingly jealous of Finny, leading to the climax of the story, when Gene jounces his friend from the top of a tree. This would cripple Finny, leaving the former star-athlete unable to perform. In A Separate Peace, Finny’s fall down a flight of stairs at the end of the novel, that would eventually lead to his death was not an accident, but instead an act of suicide. This suicide was a result of Finny’s constant state of innocence, the trust he had kept in Gene, and his realization of Gene’s involvement in his fall.

Throughout A Separate Peace, readers see Finny as a model of innocence. When his classmates were focused on the threat of the war, he separated himself from this, instead putting his efforts into athletics, secret societies, and his best friend, Gene. Even after suffering a life-changing injury, he still managed to maintain a positive mindset. This is recognized by Gene in the text, as he states “I never killed anybody and I never

Any future he had with the war effort, or athletics (in which he had excelled) was taken away, not by his own mistake, but by his best friend’s act. He quickly exited the room, faced by his despair, and, according to Gene's point of view, fell down the stairs. But, looking deeper into the text, this is the less-likely explanation. Finny was created by Knowles to represent the innocence within teenage boys of the time. After losing both his friends and future, this separate peace (innocence) was all he had left. Once this side of him died, so would he. When Finny realized the last part of his original self could not remain, he chose to die with it. His fall down the stairs was not, as Gene chose to believe, an accident, but was instead an act of