Phillips Academy

“Envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide” (Emerson 370). A Separate Peace written by John Knowles is set in a boarding school, Devon, in New England. Gene, about five-feet nine inches, weighing about 150 pounds, was a student at Devon school and was very gullible to others. In A Separate Peace, Gene has envy of Finny and imitates him which affects him and their relationship, but in the end he gains his inner peace. To begin with, Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affects him throughout…

¨I felt that I was not, never had been, and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.¨ (Knowles 186) In a book the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles two boys Gene and Finny are supposed best friends, but there is a rivalry that lies between them. As the book goes on Gene expresses his feelings of identity and jealousy within himself and towards Finny. The book setting is right at the beginning of WWII. Along with the physical war taking…

Some people think jealousy is healthy between friends, but others say too much jealousy causes problems. In A Separate Peace, Gene is jealous of his friend Finny’s charm and charisma. John Knowles portrays Gene as a jealous character through his actions and thoughts. Knowles depicts Gene as a jealous character through his thoughts. Gene has always seen Finny as competition until he realizes “that there was and never could have been any rivalry between us” (Knowles 59). Gene has always had envy…

The ability to sustain relationships and adapt to society often depends on a person’s perspective, personality, and motivations. In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the main characters are Gene Forester and Phineas. Knowles portrays Finny as the light to Gene’s dark side, the yin to his yang. Knowles creation of characters with opposing personalities helps to further develop the novel. The most prominent character in A Separate Peace is Gene Forrester. In the novel, Gene is grown up…

Throughout A Separate Peace, Knowles uses juxtaposition to develop the characters of Gene and Phineas, also known as Finny. They are always with each other, and Gene even juxtaposes himself against Finny multiple times in the book. Consequently, these contrasts between them help establish their character; who they really are. One example of juxtaposition would be how Gene and Finny performed in school. Each of the boys had something they excelled at. For Finny, it was athletics; for Gene is…

Wheelwright as a Christmas gift and he began to write in it with his entries mentioning God. After Owen’s death, John would read Owen’s diary and in one particular entry written on New Year’s day during John and Owen’s senior year at the Gravesend Academy. Owen was writing about how “[He] wish [he] knew how [he] was going to die; but God has allowed [him] to more than most people know” (Irving 372). Owen is still grateful for what God has revealed to him so far in his life, despite the fact…

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is a fictional novel about a boy named Gene Forrester and his life at the Devon Private School, during the early 1940’s. Gene faces many challenges and hardships throughout the book, one being the war. The war ends up taking over life at Devon, starting with the boys picking apples for the war effort, then Leper Lepellier enlisting, and eventually the troops moving in, and dominating life at Devon. The war slowly starts influencing life at Devon, starting with…

“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.” (Maya Angelou) The story A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a coming-of-age story that outlines the summer adventures of the jealous, intelligent Gene and his athletic best friend Finny at Devon School in New Hampshire. Regardless of their close relationship, Gene still harbors some resentful feelings towards Finny which get worse when Gene assumes Finny is trying to keep him distracted from his schoolwork, and…

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide…”proclaimed Emerson (370-372). John Knowles novel, A Separate Peace, takes place at Devon School of New Hampshire, 1942-1943. The narrator Gene is a conformist who questions his personal identity, which becomes lost in the envy of is best friend, Phineas. The mixed feelings of admiration and jealousy toward Finny are portrayed in the book. The novel, A Separate Peace,…

he Future is determined by one’s action in the present, So when given a chance to look at the future, people will want to come back to the present, and change their actions for a better future. In the novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Scrooge, the main character, is a wicked and grumpy man to start with. As four ghost visits him, with the ghost of future as the most influential, Scrooge becomes a caring, joyful man. While the all the ghosts are important in the development of…