Summary Of John Knowles A Separate Peace: Competition

In the natural world spiders are often one of the most feared creatures. Humans perceive that spiders will harm them but in reality spiders are solely concerned with themselves. Humans frequently have perceived emotions without any logical reason. This concept is made evident in John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, with regard to competition. Competition is created in the mind of Gene between himself and Phineas, without any logical reason. Gene develops an increasing envy of Phineas’ athletic abilities and talkativeness that breeds competition. This competition is created by Gene noting the differences between Finny and himself changing Phineas’ personality to make him a competitor. The imaginary competition ends when Gene realizes his perceptions

While at Devon school during the summer a group of boys had gathered beneath a tree that seniors jumped out of into the river. Phineas, at this time, had come up with the idea to jump out of the tree and is not even slightly daunted by the thought. Gene finds the idea to be crazy and irrational, however Phineas finds it to be a fun idea, “He of course saw nothing the slightest bit intimidating about it. He wouldn’t or wouldn’t admit it if he did. Not Phineas.” p6. In this situation the differences between Gene and Finny can be clearly seen. Finny is fearless in the face of danger and fully believes in his capabilities and has others fully believe in them as well as he is able to project confidence even if he is afraid. Gene, on the other hand, is extremely nervous at the thought of jumping from the tree. Instead of leading a situation and inspiring others, Gene climbs the tree and jumps only because he was told to, despite the fact that he is completely unsure of himself. Later on in the novel Phineas and Gene are in their dorm room. Phineas, who decides he wants to

One evening before a french examination, Gene is in his room stufying, when Finny comes in and announces that they should go down to the tree to watch Leper jump. Gene believes that Phineas had planned the event to ruin his grade and passive aggressively confronts him about the situation. However when Finny reacts to this confrontation with nothing but honestly say that Gene should stay and study if he feels the need to, Gene begins to lose his reality of Phineas and does not understand much about his best friend any more. “ I was groping for what lay behind his words, for what his thoughts could possily be. I might have asked, “Who are you, then?” instead. I was facing a total stranger.” p50. By thinking this it can be seen that Gene has become completely unsure of a person he htoughts he knew inside and out. Having the illusion he had about Phineas ripped away suddenly, has left Gene floundering in confusion about his new situation and himself. After Gere comes to this revalation he agrees to go down to the tree and attend the meeting. As the boys are walking down to the tree Gene’s mind is in a state of confusion over his situation and he is despratly trying to understand this new Phineas that he is seeing. Gene comes to the conlcusion that, “[Phineas] had never been