Character Analysis Of Jealousy In John Knowles A Separate Peace

Jealousy doesn’t appear out of the blue. It doesn’t just show up one day. Jealousy is like a cloud. It builds up with “water” over time, and eventually downpours onto everyone standing in its way, just like in the book written by John Knowles, A Separate Peace. The three main characters involved with jealousy are Gene, Finny, and Brinker. Every riveting scene of jealousy, changes the mood of the book completely. Jealousy causes friendships to be destroyed, and hatred to form in this novel. Jealousy is the new form of self-destruction.
The first scene of jealousy to be discussed, is the scene where Gene jounced the limb of the tree, causing Finny to fall. Finny ended up with a severely broken leg. Any reader would basically have to think that Gene jounced the limb because of his of jealousy of Finny. Finny was one of those kids that everyone could be jealous of. He was a rebel, but could talk his way out of everything. He could be known as the “Houdini” of getting in trouble! Gene was obviously jealous of this, like everyone. However, the kicker is when the reader finds out that Gene had previously thought that Finny was trying to sabotage him because he was jealous of Gene’s academic abilities. At this point, you are probably thinking to yourself “What if Gene accidently did move the branch? What if he
Ever since Finny broke his leg, he has never been wanted or accepted by any regiment of the army. Since Finny is not able to fight, he began telling himself that the war was just a joke, made up by fat, old men. These actions by Finny were sparked by jealousy, and John Knowles did this to stir empathy in the story. If you were in Finny’s shoes, wouldn't you probably think the same way? Having this very important war raging on, and you are not physically capable to fight for your own country? I know for a fact that I would think like Finny, and not believe in the