Diction And Imagery In A Separate Peace By John Knowles

Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him in many ways. Gene begins to lose his identity and start conforming to Finny. According to Knowles, “If I was head of the class and won that prize then we would be even…” (27). This quote explains how Gene follows finny by trying to be head of the class with him. Gene gets jealous of Finny being head of the class, so he tells him if he was head they would be even. When Finny introduce jumping off the tree to Gene at first he didn’t want to do it, but he wanted to be like Finny so he did it. In Knowles words, “what was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me? (5).

He explains that his prep school had a completely different atmosphere after Finny’s death: “I never talked about Phineas and neither did anyone else; he was, however, present in every moment of every day since Dr. Stanpole had told me” (Knowles 202). He remained a major part of the school, the kind of person no one forgot about, even when he was not around. Even as a grown man, this event torments Gene: “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do / haunted by the ghost of you” (Huron). This quote from The Night We Met gives insight to exactly how Gene feels for harming his best friend. Word like “haunted” and “ghost” makes the audience aware of how Finny controls every aspect of Gene’s life after his tumultuous fall. While it is a tragedy that Finny passed away so young, it was something that shaped to Gene to be the person he is when narrating the

In chapter thirteen, the reader sees Gene pretty much consumed with an overwhelming amount of grief. Gene’s grief and regret have multiplied in this chapter for good reason. Finny’s fatal leg surgery opens a whole new world of grief, regret, and sorrow for Gene. In chapter thirteen, the reader can see that Gene is struggling to cope with multiple things. Gene is struggling with the idea that he and Finny could ever develop rivalry, his actions he took on the tree, and most of all, Finny’s death. On page two hundred and two, Gene says to himself “... I could not use the past tense, for instance-and what they had to say would be incomprehensible to me.” Gene is continually fighting with his conscience about Finny’s death. Gene pours over his actions inside his mind, but he knows that he can not take them back. Accordingly, Gene is filled with so much grief about Finny’s death, that he can not even admit that Finny is gone. Gene also can not talk about Finny in past tense because the thought of Finny being gone is unbearable. On page two hundred and three, Gene expresses his grief and sorrow once again. On page two hundred and three, Gene says internally “Not as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last I had.” Here, Gene is explaining to the reader that out of all of the bad things in life, Finny’s spirit is never broken. Finny’s uplifting spirit and demeanor remains constant no matter what life brings. Gene changes that. Gene breaks Finny’s spirit and his “natural unity”. Gene once again uses his perspective to his continuous struggles convey to the reader his war with his conscience, and the guilt that he

In high schools all around the world there are students that might have a lot of friends or just a few, and it is the same with friendships too. Those friends and friendships could turn out to be negative or positive, depending on their impact on a student growing up. Like how a student could get peer pressured by his friends into doing drugs or underage drinking and then grow up being an alcoholic or a drug addict. A good situation could start out with a student that is challenged by his friends to do better in school and grows up to be a successful pro sports player or a successful business man who is very wealthy. Friends do have a great impact on who you turn out to be.

Gene, whether intentionally or accidentally, jounces the limb of a tree when Finny and Gene decide to do a double jump together, causing Finny to fall and injure his legs. Finny, due to his trust, denies Gene’s admission for causing Finny’s fall, so Gene believes, “At Devon, where every stick of furniture didn’t assert that Finny was a part of it, I could make it up to him” (70). Gene, despite admitting his harm to Finny, still believes of a distance between both of them. Moreover, he uses the distance of Finny from every furniture to symbolize Finny’s disappearance from Devon. At the end of the quote, Gene believes Finny’s injury and denial creates an opportunity for Gene to find his own identity, believing he can fill in the gap between them that Gene’s rivalry creates. However, he does not deal with Finny’s denial and continues to let himself hide the truth through lies, not knowing that this distances them even further. To continue, in another example, Brinker, a friend of both Gene and Finny, brings Finny to face the truth of his injury. On the other hand, Gene makes excuses to avoid dealing with the conflict and the truth that Leper testifies seeing, telling himself, “Leper was no threat, no one would ever believe Leper; Leper was deranged, he was not of sound mind,” (172) and during Leper’s statements, “Everyone could hear, couldn’t they? the

In chapter nine of the novel A Separate Peace written by John Knowles, Gene begins by describing that he started to believe Finny's theory about fat old men causing rumors about war. The war seemed even more unrealistic to Gene now that Leper decided to enlist. Leper’s choice to enlist rather than wait a few weeks to be drafted had to do with being able to pick his service instead of being assigned to one. Brinker, Gene, and Chet wondered if Leper could be heroic, however Finny decided to stay out of the jokes. They also wonder if they can ever measure up to the standards of the war. Since a typical Saturday at Devon is usually boring, Finny decided to start the discussion of planning a Winter Carnival that everyone would volunteer to lead

Then at last Finny straightened from this prayerful position slowly; as though it was painful for him” (Knowles 172). Here, Gene’s decision to lie to Finny reveals his selfish and deceitful side overpowering his morality. He lies to preserve the untainted image that Finny held of him. He completely disregards the impact it would have on Finny when he inevitably found out the truth from someone other than him. When Gene “did not return [Finny’s] look” it reveals his immediate guilt and shame because he recognizes that this would have a negative impact not only on Finny, but their friendship. In addition, Gene’s selfish desires to fulfill his satisfaction forces him to feel the necessity to shake the tree branch. Gene admits, “[Finny] 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. I couldn’t stand this” (Knowles 59). In the moments leading up to Finny’s fall, Gene realizes the mutual rivalry and enmity between him and Finny does not exist. Finny has no real enemy, re-establishing Gene’s inferiority to him knowing his morals are “not of the same quality as [Finny’s].” His realization that he remains inferior angers Gene and causes him to reveal his spitefulness when he shook the tree

Finny and Gene's different strengths and weaknesses In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene and Finny are very different individuals, but together are great friends. They help each others with their weaknesses and when put together their strengths make them a great team. Despite what differences they do have, Gene and Finny are very close friends. Gene is a very intelligent person but throughout the book he is plagued by his jealousy.

The fictional novels title, A Separate Peace, by author John Knowles, is known and read across the country, and for whatever the reason, whether it be for school, business, or pleasure, no one can deny the books cleaver writing and emotional scenes between the characters. As the novel pieces together it is revealed that the title, A Separate Peace, suggests the central theme of Loyalty through characters, Gene and Finny’s friendship, and Finny’s undying faith and forgiveness in Gene. Throughout the novel, A Separate Peace, characters Gene and Finny share a complex friendship. In the novel Gene explains his feelings toward Finny multiple times throughout the length of the novel but during the Winter Carnival when he explains this, “and when

If I were in Gene’s situation and I had pushed someone off a tree (I never would), I would very much feel guilty. Especially if I considered them my “best friend” because I feel as if you are hurting someone close to you intentionally whether it's physically, emotionally, or mentally and you don’t feel any type of remorse or guilt from it, you are simply being selfish. While reading this scene in the book ,I felt like it was powerful in a way that caused me to get goosebumps across my body. I got goosebumps across my body because it made me realize that, although it’s just a book people are still capable of hurting the people they “care” about and not even feel a bit of guilt and somehow justify hurting them. The further I read that’s when I learned that Gene did feel guilty but he managed to deal with it. I learned to understand how Gene dealt with that

In the beginning of the novel, when Gene comes back to Devon he revisits his museum which contains the most important moments from his past. In the museum of Gene there might be “exhibits” for events such as blitzball, the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session, Phineas falling out of the tree, Gene visiting Phineas’s house in Boston, Phineas’s return to Devon, the investigation of Phineas’s accident, Phineas falling down the stairs, Phineas dying, Leper going crazy, Gene training for the Olympics, Gene leaving after graduation, and Gene not crying at Phineas’s memorial service. It is important for him to revisit these memories because he needs to forgive himself for his past deeds and remember the good times he had at Devon. He needs

Everyone can relate to guilt, competition, rivalry, envy, and jealousy. These themes played an extremely important role in the novel “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles. Knowles used many different themes to portray the story of a preparatory school during World War II. The use of themes by Knowles made the story easily relatable to anyone in at least one way. This novel is comparable to other novels such as “Night” by Elie Wiesel.

In the book A Separate Peace, by John Knowles there are two contrasting characters. The first character, named Gene is rival and bitter and is characterized by his hate and jealousy. In contrast, the other main character, Finny, shows strength, goodness, forgiveness, and many more respectable qualities. By the end of the book, even though he showed great qualities and may have been a better person, Finny does end up dying. Though he dies, I believe he is a stronger character compared to Gene. I believe this for many reasons.

Gene’s secret antipathy of Finny continues to grow until Gene does the unthinkable when they are playing in the tree. “Holding family to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb” (Knowles 85). As a result of Gene’s actions causing Finny’s fall, Finny breaks his leg. Finny is no longer able to participate in sports and not eligible for enlistment. Another way Gene and Finny’s relationship is affected is when Finny gets caught wearing the Devon School’s tie and Gene hopes for him to get in trouble. Knowles states, “The time he was not going to get away with it. I could feel myself becoming unexpectedly excited at that” (27). Finny is charismatic and could get away with a lot of things, but Gene did not like that. He wants Finny to get the consequences that he deserve for doing the things he has done. Gene often gets mad that Finny would not face the consequences and that caused Gene’s enmity. What is apparent in this relationship is that Gene ascribes all of his own suspicions, enviousness, and resentment to Finny, assuming Finny thinks and feels the same way as Gene. In fact, however Gene misreads everything about Finny and his

A shocking, but often true thing people do is betray others, because of evil in their hearts. An example of this is found in “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles. In this story the character Gene Forrester goes through many struggles to achieve and maintain a separate peace until he visits Devon 15 years later. Gene becomes best friends with Finny at the Devon School in New Hampshire. Through the Summer Session Gene and Finny as they start to do more things together and Gene starts to become jealous of Finny. It then leads him to the conclusion that Finny was trying to sabotage him. Eventually Gene starts to have hatred towards Finny and it leads to him jouncing the tree limb and making Finny fall out of the tree. Anger and evil that one develops