Character Analysis: A Separate Peace By John Knowles

The boys in the Butt Room react to Brinker’s accusation as a joke, and playfully accuse Gene of his attempt to purposely hurt Finny and knock him out of the tree. The boys start to question gene of what happened during the time of the fall, and if he was the one who purposely caused Finny to lose his balance. The reason Gene is to play along and make up a story about his attempt to murder Finny was to hide the truth of his actions and to keep them from finding out “ Oh, you know about the tree, I tried to let my face fall guilty, but I felt instead as though it were being dragged toward. Yes, huh, yes there was a small, a little contretemps at the tree” (Knowles 90).

One way that Gene is affected is that he starts getting jealous of Finny, which causes Finny to get hurt. In the story, the author says, “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone…,” (Knowles, 60). This evidence proves that Gene has gotten Finny hurt, but did not mean to. Before they had gone to the tree, Gene was still jealous of Finny, so who knows if it were intentional or not.

He feels a lot of guilt for doing this. Gene comes to Finny later in novel and tries to explain to him that he really was the one who jounced the limb, which was the cause of Finny's plummet into the water. Finny simply does not believe Gene, but this makes Gene's guilt worsen. When the boys of the school decide to have a trial, Gene's guilt becomes increasingly worse. Throughout the novel, we see that Gene's guilt is seen more and more every time that the fall is

But then he drops it and apologizes for ever thinking about it. Gene is still in guilt over the accident. This is not consistent with Finny’s personality because throughout the book, Finny has shown to be not one to accuse and to mistrust his friends. Gene tries to tell Finny the truth and is unable to bring himself to say it. In addition, Gene becomes defensive on the part of Finny and still feels guilty.

Later, on his jealousy deepens when he realizes that Finny isn’t selfish like him. As a consequence, he cripples the one person who is his best friend. Gene’s jealousy doesn’t only create an inner war and destroys his peace, it also destroys Finny’s. ““You want to break something else in me! Is that why you’re here!”

Gene considers Finny to be his best friend. In this type of friendship there is an implied vow of trust, loyalty and sense of forever friendship "Finny could shine with everyone, he attracted everyone he met. I was glad of that too. Naturally. He was my roommate and my best friend" (Knowles 40).

Since Finny cannot play sports anymore because of his broken leg, he tells Gene that he has to do it for him. Gene realizes that this is his destiny; to become an extension of Phineas. Another way he is affected is that he starts to lose his own ways by copying Finny. When Finny was in the hospital wing of the school, Gene put his clothes on and said “that I would never stumble through the confessions

Before he tried and confess to Finny he asks himself what would Finny do in my situation, “If Phineas had been sitting in this pool of guilt, how would he have felt, what would he have done? He would have told me the truth” (Knowles 66). This was very helpful for Gene in order for him to confess to Finny. But, when he confessed to Finny he wouldn’t believe him. “I was thinking about you and the accident because I caused it,” “What do you mean you caused it?”

The author, John Knowles, in the novel, “A Separate Peace”, conveys the lesson of friendship, or rather the lack of, with his use of diction. The strategy in which the author phrased certain sections of dialogue between Finny and Gene is there to show that Finny cares for Gene despite Gene’s obvious discontent. The friendship is a one-way street, and the author uses diction to represent this unbalance in the relationship, leading to friendship being a key theme throughout the book. There exist many examples of this diction throughout the novel, one of these is during their illegal beach trip. “I hope you’re having a pretty good time here.

He still encourages Gene to do the things that Finny no longer can because he wants to see someone else flourish, and most importantly: his friend. After Finny’s death, Gene even declares that “nothing … had broken [Finny’s] harmonious and natural unity” (Knowles 203). Since Gene exclaims this, the reader understands that Finny

Gene finally fully confessed when Finny was in the hospital after falling down the steps. Gene told Finny he tried to tell him a couple times before when the story states “ Finny, I tried to tell you before, I tried to tell you when I came to Boston -” (145). Finny already knew Gene did it but he was not ready to hear it completely yet. Finny forgave Gene after he said he believed that it was a blind impulse.

His heart was too pure to suspect Gene’s jealous intent. This injury caused a chain reaction eventually leading to Finny’s miserable

Gene wanted Finny to get in trouble for what Finny had did, which had worn his tie as a belt. He hated that Finny got away with almost anything that he did wrong and wanted to go down someday. Another way their relationship is affected is through Gene’s lack of self-finding and liking. Gene hated that he never was like Finny, so he started to acting and do things that Finny did. That caused a lot of jealousy, guilt, and self-destruction from throughout the relationship that Gene and Finny had.

After Finny falls from the tree that generated him to break his leg and causes him not to be able to play football ever again. While Gene knows he is guilty, he wants to confess to Finny that it was he who shook the tree, but does not have the valor to tell him the truth, and since Gene will not tell Finny, Finny tells everyone that his injury was caused by him losing his balance and fell off the tree. Then after a while, Gene finally tries to tell Finny that it was he that shook the tree, but Finny won’t believe him and continues to believe it was him losing his balance. Then comes Brinker that assembles everybody to tell Finny that it was Gene that shook the tree, but then they start saying that Gene did it on purpose. Finny could not stand being there with everyone, so he tries to leave the assembly, unfortunately, as Finny tries to go down the stairs, he falls down and breaks his leg again, and was rushed to the doctor.

Gene from John Knowles novel, A Separate Peace, a dynamic character changes in accordance to the events of the story. Gene is a very intelligent student. Throughout the novel we see Gene almost become persuaded by the actions of his friend Phineas. Phineas is a bouncy character who loves sports and doesn’t see the value of studying like Gene. Gene frequently tries to balance his academic and social life, but he gets sick of this balancing act when he backlashes at Phineas for interrupting him from his schoolwork, “Okay, we go.