A Separate Peace Essay
In the novel, A Separate Peace written by John Knowles, the protagonist, Gene Forrester goes through the struggle to achieve and maintain a separate peace. Gene's soul becomes a battleground where jealousy, fear, love, and hatred combat for control of his actions. And amidst the turmoil of his adolescence, it is the victory of the "dark forces" of human nature that make Gene realize that each person is alone with his enemy, that the only significant wars are not made by external causes, but "by something ignorant in the human heart" (193). The novel's conflict arises out of Gene's refusal to recognize his own feelings of jealousy and insecurity as the "real enemy." Instead, his fears are projected onto his closest companion, Phineas, whom Gene suspects of possessing his own feelings of envy and self-loathing. With Finny as the enemy, Gene is put into a world of competition and hatred, where the only crucial elements worth preserving are his own survival and superiority. This act of self-deception drives Gene to evil thoughts and behavior, destroying any feelings of affection and friendship that he might have once had for Finny. Upon realizing his mistake and discovering that Phineas does not share Gene's envy and hatred, Gen
Gene explains his actions over Phineas death: "I did not cry then or ever about Finny. I did not cry even when I stood watching him being lowered into his family's strait-laced burial ground outside of Boston. I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case." (186) This passage was chosen because it expresses a solemn conclusion to Finny's death with Gene. When Gene is unreasonably alarmed at the calmness of his own voice when he asks Dr. Stanpole about Finny. He never cries over Finny, neither when he is first told he is dead, nor at the funeral, because he feels he has died along with him--yet another example of the fusion of the two. Finny was the sort of person who appreciated people, like Gene, for what they were to him, and felt free to tell them their significance. Gene, however, wasn't even able to acknowledge what Finny was to him until it was too late, and Finny was already lost. This recalls Finny telling Gene that he was his best friend, and Gene not being able to say the same thing; Gene is unable to search his feelings and come up with the same conclusion as Finny. e's isolation and self-loathing deepen and he intentionally cripples the one person who wants to be his friend. Phineas becomes a metaphor for the peace that is lost when Gene is too afraid to identify the enemy within himself. The peace and friendship that Gene lost, the peace that is Finny, becomes for Gene so internalized that he no longer perceives Finny as separate from himself, evidenced by his feeling that Finny's funeral is his
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Approximate Word count = 1063
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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