A Separate Peace Theme Essay

A Separate Peace In the book A Separate Peace written by John Knowles the main character attends an all boys school. The book is set during World War One and explains how life and how the boys at the school are effected. There are two main themes in the book and they are jealousy and friendship. The two themes are actually mainly between two friends that attend Devon. The two themes show up several times throughout the entire book. The two boys both experience the to themes and both have to over come their jealousy and keep their friendship The theme that first shows up is friendship. Gene is a great student and he is a decent athlete and is the main character in the book. Finny is an alright student but he is an amazing athlete who exceeds
There is a tree at the boys school that boys jump off of almost as initiation. During this time Finny and Gene both jump out of the tree and decide to make a club that before every meeting the two boys both have to jump out of it. When Gene realizes the envy they have for each other he does something that he regrets later in the book. The two boys climbed up the tree to jump but before Finny could jump Gene shook the branch they were standing on and Finny fell to the ground below breaking his leg. Gene never tells Finny he was the reason he fell and Finny does not know what Gene did. Breaking his leg resulted in Finny going home and not able to play sports Gene does go see his friend and that is where you first see jealousy and friendship go hand and hand. The reason being although Gene was very jealous he still went and supported his friend. Reading the book you find that jealousy overcomes friendship if you let it. Gene acted on his jealousy and hurt his best friend making him unable to play sports or anything. Gene still succeeds in school while Finny can not succeed in something he was amazing