What happens when one person in the relationship is overly competitive, to the point where he is hurting the friendship? Gene is jealous of Finny because he is athletic, he thinks that Finny is trying to compete with him in academics, and Finny is well liked. For example, Gene considers Finny almost like a Greek hero. Finny accels in virtually every sport, and even when he is injured Finny wants Gene to be the athlete he couldn't. Gene is slightly athletic, but not in the way Finny is, and Gene is envious of his friend.
“Don’t fear the enemy that attacks you, but the fake friend that hugs you” -PravineeHurbungs. It is still undecided weather Finny realized this about Gene or not but, even withWWII going on, the cruelest enemy was right next to him. A Separate Peace is a novel by JohnKnowles, based in New Hampshire, 1942. The novel showcases, coming-of-age, jealousy , andloss of innocence through the main character Gene.Gene and Finny became roommates at the prestige Devon School for boys. Finny being anaturally born athlete, and Gene being more academically based.
If he is not thinking for himself, he is not being true to himself. Another way that Gene is affected is that he allows his imitation of Finny get in the way of his schooling. Finny talks Gene into going to the beach on a school night, not fearing the consequences. Gene explains “The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden,
They are supposed to be best friends, but Gene envies him and thinks he is trying to make him look bad. After Finny’s accident, Gene struggled with guilt and his life was changed because of it. “I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was. One evening when I was dressing for dinner in this numbed frame of mind, an idea occurred to me, the first with any energy behind it since Finny fell from the tree. I decided to put on his clothes” (Knowles 29).
Gene was trying to confess so he could not feel guilty anymore, but Gene still decided to let himself off the hook when Finny couldn’t accept it. Gene felt good knowing that he tried. The second and most important way Gene found his peace was through Finny’s death. When Finny died Gene said, “I did not cry then or ever about Finny …. I could not escape feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case” (Knowles 116).
The envy, took over Gene and Gene realizes later that all of the incidents with Finny could have been avoided. Gene’s greed took over him, now Gene will try his hardest to relieve some of the pain of losing his best friend, knowing he is the culprit. Gene lost his best friend, he will never Forgive himself, never will find
“Confronted with the evident truth of Finny’s denial, Gene understands his inferiority to Phineas and his own moral ugliness, made the more so when juxtaposed to Finny’s innocence. It is this realization that prompts his conscious shaking of the tree, which casts Phineas to the earth and which serves as Gene’s initiation into the ignorance and moral blackness of the human heart” (Ellis 82). On a level of purity and innocence, Finny outweighs Gene by a lot, and it was Gene’s realization of his jealousy and his inferiority to Finny that led to the injury. This symbol of loss of innocence continues to come back and haunt both Gene and Finny throughout the novel. They both continue to grow and mature, but now it is different.
“He had never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between us. I was not of the same quality as he.“ (page 59). Gene wanted Finny to care about Gene and have a concern if Gene was going to beat him in sports, Gene had issues when facing Finny’s confidence. Therefore, Gene always tried to make Finny jealous and that pushed him to hurt him in the
“Because my war ended before I ever put on the uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there” (Knowles 204). In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, the main character conforms their way to maturity and peace. Gene Forrester is a young student who is academically well-off but is also conflicted with envy by his best friend Phineas. Phineas, or “Finny”, is talented at sports and very charismatic around the school. Thus, A Separate Peace depicts the effect of Gene and his relationships but also the lack of peace, and the ultimate resolve of peace he accomplishes.
We can all agree that this quote shows that Gene envy is unhealthy. Another way Gene’s envy is affecting with him is, that he take the assistant-manger job, and that job was supposed to be for people in the school that cannot play sports. Gene knew that Finny would want to do this job, so he took it so Finny would have it. For example the book state,” Jobs like mine were usually taken by stripling with some physical disability, since everyone had to take part in sports and this wall all disabled boys could do”(Knowles 77). According to this