Реферат: A Separate Peace Finny

A Separate Peace: Finny – How Things Change Essay, Research Paper

A Separate Peace: Finny – How Things Change

In the novel “A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles, a boy named Gene

visits his high school 15 years after graduating in order to find an inner peace.

While attending the private boys school during the second World War, Gene’s

best friend Phineas died and Gene knows he was partially responsible. Phineas,

or Finny as he was sometimes called, was the most popular boy in school. He was

a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. Gene, on the other hand, was a lonely,

self-sufficient intellectual. Somehow the two became good friends, or so Finny

thought. Gene, unfortunately, was bitten by the green-eyed monster of jealousy.

Gene just couldn’t come to grips with the idea that a person of Finny’s stature

would want to be his friend. Gene’s envy grew to a point where he was willing

to severely injure Finny for being too perfect. Unfortunately for Finny, Gene

succeeded. Finny’s seeming perfection, his strong beliefs, and his ability to

forgive trace his development throughout the novel.

Finny’s seeming perfection was the basis for Gene’s resentment towards

him. Gene thought that everything Finny did was perfect, which just upset Gene

all the more. Finny was so perfect that he didn’t care what others thought,

like when Finny wore a pink shirt as an emblem after the bombing of central

Europe. ” ‘…Pink! It makes you look like a fairy!’ ‘Does it?’ He used this

preoccupied tone when he was thinking of something more interesting than what

you had said.” One time Finny and Gene were at the swimming pool when Finny

noticed that a boy named A. Hopkins Parker had the record for the 100 yards free

style. When Finny realized that A. Hopkins Parker had graduated before they

came, he remarked, “I have a feeling I can swim faster than A. Hopkins Parker.”

He was right. Gene was ecstatic that Finny could do such a thing without any

training or anything. All Gene could say was, “You’re too good to be true.” In

certain ways he was.

Throughout the book Gene knows that Finny has some strong beliefs. The

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