Preview

Phineas 'Innocence In John Knowles' A Separate Peace

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
205 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Phineas 'Innocence In John Knowles' A Separate Peace
Phineas was so different, so special from everyone else because of his innocence. Phineas was so oblivious to the concept of war, and instead of facing it, he pretended like it was not even there. Gene was unlike Phineas, and was almost the opposite of him. Gene was a true pessimist and imagined the worst in every little situation. Along with Phineas’ innocence, he also had another way that separated him from the everyday person, which was his utopia where everything that Phineas wanted to happen, happens. This utopia, his separate peace, causes Finny to believe things that were not true, and to trust everyone. One example of a major scene of Gene with Phineas is when they were the first people at their age ever at Devon to jump out of the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    As he losses his innocence he starts to lose himself, in this case to Phineas. His actions start to speak for him when he pushes Phineas of the tree it reveals a new side of him no one knew he had. Although he is in denial for a very long time he eventually reveals the truth. The challenges and experiences that he faces helps him realize that to move on he needed to accept what he did wrong. He finally learns to accept himself and his friendship with Phineas. Although his innocence has vanished, his way of life…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book A Separate Peace, Phineas is a character who exudes idealism, as is shown in the rules of his game Blitzball. The rules of Blitzball can essentially be summed up in the third and most important of Finny’s commandments: “You always win at sports” (35). This is an undisputed rule of Blitzball; there is no winner, and the only purpose the game serves is for the players to have fun. This is shown when the ball is thrown at Leper Lepellier and Leper is scared and refuses the ball. Instead of ignoring this and possibly making Leper upset, Finny says “The reciever can refuse a pass if he happens to chose to …….We call that that the Lepellier Refusal” (39). In this passage, Finny is obviously creating rules just for the happiness of one…

    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Near the end of the chapter, Phineas tells gene that the reason he told him that there wasn’t a war was because he wasn’t accepted to any of them because of his leg. Gene tells Phineas that when they were on the tree limb, he had an impulse to shake the limb. Phineas, the loving friend that he is, forgives gene and tells him he believes him. Throughout the chapter they show in various ways their love for each other even at the end when Phineas dies. He says that Phineas passing makes him feel like he is at his own…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Finny is an example of an imperfect perfection in the eyes of Gene. In the eyes of Gene, he uses to see Finny as his best friend but overtime saw him as a competition; but towards the end saw him as a friend that was better. Finny is a distinctive character because he is someone who sees beyond the barriers of what society at the time. During the time of the book, people’s mentality was based off what the war was going to be like and where they would end up. But Finny was the type of person who towards the end of the book didn’t believe that there really was a war. It wasn’t because he was delusional or that he was stupid. He saw that there was no enemy and that in society there was never an enemy to fight. But this was never clear to Gene…

    • 211 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the early chapters of the book Knowles writes about Finny as a seemingly perfect boy who can do no wrong. “Phineas could get away with anything”(p.18). Finny's seeming perfection…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the novel, Gene is constantly comparing himself to Finny, over exaggerating the competition between them, which has detrimental effects on their relationship. Gene creates the goal of being valedictorian to provide an accomplishment to compete with Phineas’ athletic achievements. He believes that…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author builds Gene by making him competitive, using his thoughts and actions to show the factor, such as, “If I was head of the class and won that prize, then we would be even (page 52.) Contrasting that, the author lead Phineas to have a “competitive for fun” type of outlook, as seen when Phineas breaks the school record yet doesn’t tell anyone (pages 37 and 44.) Instead of the author just coming out and saying that Gene was competitive and Phineas wasn’t, he puts a twist in the outlook to show the hidden motives between them, making the reader infer the true characteristics between one’s action. Additionally, another example would be how Gene is a follower and how Phineas is a leader. Phineas usually takes command of a lot of many of the activities both the boys usually do; one example to which shows how Phineas dominates control is when he says “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me (page 85.)” Since Gene does not have a leader type personality, he abides toward this work of speech said by Phineas, instead of working against it. Pursuing this further, Gene even says that it has “ been my purpose from the first: to become part of Phineas (page 85.)” Unquestionably this shows how Gene follows the footsteps of Phineas, and how the author intentionally made this instance to show how both characters differ. Throughout the story, the author continues this type of characterization, admitting the intentions of both characters by contrasting them against each…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Because Gene was so suspicious of his friends being a revival it made him feel guilty and very ashamed of his actions and what he did to someone who honestly didn't deserve it at all. "and I thought we were competitors, it was so ludicrous I wanted to cry" (Knowles 58). Gene knows that Phineas is his friend and Gene also knows that Phineas isn't the kind of person who wouldn't put competition before friendship. Gene knows this so well that he thought it was silly that he ever assumed they were competitors, he wanted to cry about…

    • 1533 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A best friend is someone who is always there for you, someone you can trust and who trusts you- or is it? At least, this is what most people think of when they think of the term ‘best friend’. But what if the person you have always considered your best friend betrays you, becomes jealous of you, doesn’t trust you, and even could have caused your death? Are they still your best friend? Are these behaviors just small mistakes that every human makes or are they really worth forgiving? Can two people with this relationship still remain friends? In the book A Separate Peace, author John Knowles uses his two main characters, Gene Forrester and Phineas to show that friends can have disagreements, but major characteristic differences like jealousy…

    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Separate Peace Themes

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Gene’s journey through his years at Devon shows how he matures and gains a bigger understanding of the world around him. At the beginning of the book, both Gene and Phineas were childish at the beginning of the book. For example, Phineas would wear pink clothing and a school tie as a belt to a headmaster’s gathering. “In his haste that morning Finny had not unexpected used a tie for a belt. But this morning the tie at hand had been the Devon School tie” (20). This shows a level of disrespect of self-image and school-image that usually rash, young children have. Phineas even believes that the war is just a scam made up by adults to get a profit. There’s the bad, there’s the good; just pure black and white. He was even able to rationalize this illogical belief to Gene, and Gene easily gives in. Just like how a child sticks to her favorite blanket or comforting teddy bear to protect her from the nasty in life, Phineas is Gene’s way of clinging on to a more immature view to explain life simply.…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Phineas and Gene are best friends, but also, although Finny never realizes it, worst enemies. Gene’s insecurity is the cause for nearly everything bad that happens throughout the course of the story. Although almost anyone could be jealous of Finny, with his natural athletic ability, popularity, fearlessness, and knack of getting away with anything, Gene’s jealousy was much deeper and much more sinister than a slight twinge of envy. His insecurity made him so jealous of Finny that he desperately wanted to be him, but also hated him at the same time. His jealousy drove him to choose Finny as his enemy and rival and made him dream up bad things about Finny to try and convince himself that he wasn’t as perfect as he seemed to be. Gene believes, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Gene and Finny’s codependency is ended after Finny’s sudden death. Gene starts to re-examine himself, his thoughts and his emotions. Finally Gene puts things into perspective (Slethaug). Gene’s life from the start of his friendship with Finny has revolved around Finny. Everything he did, felt, thought about regarded Finny. His goal of becoming best in the class, and his envy were the result of Finny. Finny was the column, the foundation that supported and shaped his life. The foundation crumbles away with Finny’s death and Gene’s life comes crashing down. He can no longer depend on Finny to dictate his emotions, his thoughts and to serve as an idol he must surpass. With Finny gone, Gene now sees the foolishness and illusion he had been living in and the reality of life. He realizes that many of the enemies he had seen were the product of his own fear. He knows that Finny was a genuine and true friend who meant the best for him. Gene realizes that fear of everything had led to his seeing enemies in friends and that it was harmful. He sees that his fear had led him to feel threatened by a fearless Finny and his jealousy. His fear had made him feel that everyone was out to get him. Most importantly this fear had led him to seriously cripple Phineas and in the end led to Finny’s death. His guilt at having had a direct role in Finny’s death leads to him seeing the illogicality of fearing the world, the unknown, the imaginary enemy. He has escaped from his fear of the world, and matured into an adult in the process. Only now when he no longer fears anything or anyone, can Gene focus on himself and forge an identity. Only now when he does not see in everyone some quality that he lacks can he truly sees his own strengths and vulnerabilities and take them lightly. Gene can focus on forging his own identity when he other people’s identities no longer interest him. Phineas teaches Gene that in this world…

    • 1524 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    As Phineas returns from recovering from his injury, Gene talks to him about enlisting in the war. Phineas scoffs at this saying “there isn’t any war”. He believes “That’s what this whole war story is. A medicinal drug.” (115). Because of Phineas denying the war and creating his own reality, his identity and behavior are a result of it, “like a wave at the seashore...peaceably treading water." His choices to stay with his beliefs creates his identity. His identity as an innocent character, re-illustrating the war as just a peaceful dream. As Leper enlists into the war, people in the Butt Room begin making stories about him and his glory. Phineas didn’t join in because he didn’t believe in the war so "He drew me increasingly away…into a world inhabited by just himself and me, where this no war at all, just Phineas and me alone" When events that might draw him out of his fantasy, he hides into his fantasy along with Gene. Gene now becomes an extension of him, as not just as a friend but as Phineas himself. When he can’t fully control his life, he makes Gene live his life for him. If anything transpires to Gene, he loses what he has left to make of his dreams. Now Phineas’ identity relies upon Gene, making him do whatever he would have done. Phineas’ denial of the war and reliance on Gene re-illustrates how people see friends and re-illustrates how war might…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Recess Queen Essay

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages

    After listening to the book, Mean Gene seemed to be the bully at the school. All the other children once at recess waited to see what, Mean Gene was going do prior to the other children begin to play. For example, once Mean Gene kicked the ball the other children did, once Mean Gene seen other children in her space, she would try to hurt them. Mean Gene seem to be controlling in her performance toward other children. She didn’t have civic character, meaning that she didn’t think how other people would feel if she continued. to treat her peers in a cruel moral, domineer. Her moral character was hurtful, controlling, and hostile to the children on the playground. Before they…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Separate Peace Conflict

    • 1769 Words
    • 8 Pages

    He spends his summer at the school, which entails numerous adventures. Although he does experience joyful moments and a peaceful summer, most of the time, with or without knowing, he battles to be the best. During this summer the boys all play competitive games that are usually about the war, and Gene does his best to succeed in them. Pressured by Phineas and others, he even goes against his natural schoolboy manner and breaks multiple rules. The most telling event here, and essentially a main focus of the book is Gene and Phineas’ friendship and the accident that severed it. They were the best of friends and over the course of the book they grow apart due to Gene’s excessive need to find an enemy and conquer it. It can be argued that Phineas did not ever grow apart from Gene- Gene isolated himself under false ideas of betrayal. This need to gain power over Phineas is what pushes him over the edge and causes him to accidentally make Phineas fall out of a tree, permanently injuring him. This unnecessary conflict in what is supposed to be an oasis amid chaos is extremely unique and relevant to Knowles’ work. Gene not only tried to conquer the damaging things or people in his life but also the ones who loved him and the moments of peace. With this the reader is assured that Gene seems to find an enemy in everything, for he cannot truly be…

    • 1769 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays