A Separate Peace Character Analysis

A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, is a creative fiction that has viewers thinking outside the box and suspenseful feelings about what going to happen next. A Separate Peace is about Gene, the main character, coming of age and identifying who he is with the help of his friend, Phineas (Finny). Before he matures and identity who he is, he goes through this stage of depending on Finny to help him find himself. Not only does Gene depend on Finny, but Finny start depending on Gene after he falls from the tree and becomes disable. Finny depends on Gene to play sports for him and to not leave him at Devon: while Gene depends on Finny to help him find his identity. Although, Finny and Gene depended on one another they have a one-sided love …show more content…
We wore the same size […] I was Phineas, Phineas to the life. I even had his humorous expression in my face, his sharp, optimistic awareness. I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief, but it seemed, standing there in Finny’s triumphant shirt, that I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again.[…]That night I slept easily, and it was only on waking up that the illusion was gone, and I was confronted with myself ” (62). This means that Gene would rather be Finny than to accept and come to term with his identity. Gene denial of his identity and secretly desiring to be Finny is keeping him from accepting the world and understanding why he is different from Finny. Genes feels different from Finny because he is adventurous, an athletic, egocentric, and outspoken, while he is timid, discipline, smart, introvert, and everything he is not: This makes Gene feel completed with Finny. By Gene needing Finny to make him feel completed, creates a denial of Gene’s own identity and aspire to carry on with Finny’s identity. Also with Finny having an impact on Gene, allows Gene to think he has Finny approval to be him: This makes Gene deny himself even more. This is important to the text because this is where the viewers see that Finny has a strong influence over Gene and also that Gene wants …show more content…
Although critiques James Ellis says, “ Phineas’ return and Gene’s realization that Phineas needs him to help him maintain his integrity, Gene finds moral purpose and determines to live out his life at Devon with Finny” (316): it is actually the opposite. In the text, Genes does not enlist because Finny needs him: “Phineas was shocked at the idea of me leaving. In some way he needed me. He needed me.[…] The war then passed away from me, and dreams of enlistment and escape and a clean start lost their meaning for me” (Knowles 108). By Finny needing Gene prevents Gene from learning what the war is and how it has an effect on someone. This effect will cause him to mature and see the bigger picture and meaning in the world. It also causes him to realize the world isn’t as peaceful as it seems. This would help him get out his naivety and childlike mindset but with Finny standing in way: he will never gain knowledge in the world that allows him to grow into a man. Instead he will come to find out, according to Finny, that the war is not real and it is just something that the old, fat men fabricated: This knowledge will cause him to stay in dark, not have opinion on if the war is real or not and to have someone else mindset instead of his own. This contributes to the text as a whole by allowing viewers see Finny has control over Gene and who he will possibly