Character Analysis: A Separate Peace By John Knowles

In high school, students often face challenges that force them to grow up. From their first break up to peer pressure, they slowly begin losing their innocence. Similarity, in A Separate Peace two boys are exposed to hatred and violence in a military academy. During World War II, Gene and Phineas begin with a normal friendship, but throughout time they both face new conflicts. Through jealousy and paranoia, they change from friends to rivals. When challenges come face to face with Gene he attempts to get rid of them in the worst ways possible, which eventually leads him to a loss of innocence. In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene lives in his own world, but through his friendship with Phineas, he learns he has to face reality.
Primarily, Gene begins in his own bubble. He stays in his own comfort zone by only caring about staying on top of his school work and following the rules. The only person that could break his boundaries is Phineas, who he grows to envy. Eventually, Gene starts to break out of his bubble when they create a club where they jump off a tall tree. Gene hates the club because its holding him back from his studies. This leads Gene to become paranoid of Phineas and he starts to accuse him of keeping him from succeeding in school. He believes
“there never was and never could have been any rivalry between [them]” and that he “was not of the same quality as [Phineas].” Gene reacts like a child. He begins to experience feelings that are unfamiliar to him. In his mind he thinks that Phineas is better than him, which leads him to grow jealously and paranoia towards Phineas. Instead of thinking that Phineas is a good friend who wants to see him succeed in his life, Gene sees an enemy trying to keep him from his academics. Gene then gets jealous that Phineas is not jealous of him. He assumes this because he thinks that Phineas already knows he is better than Gene. This being far from the truth, proves that Gene is feeling threatened by Phineas in every way. Gene not knowing how to handle these unfamiliar emotions builds anger and jealousy inside. His innocence begins to slip away when his jealousy gets to the best of him.
When Gene jounced the limb making Phineas fall, he begins to feel guilty. He pushes Phineas out of anger. In that moment Gene feels free and he jumps off unafraid of feeling smaller than someone else. After a while, Leper and Brinker begin to grow suspicions of Gene, and it leads him to realize that what he has done was wrong. As a way of redeeming himself, he starts to become Phineas to fill in the void. Gene forms this obsessive feeling towards Phineas. “If [Phineas] can’t play sports, [Gene’s] going to play them for [Phineas].” Since he ruined Phineas’s future in sports he figures that he would do them for him and continue on what Phineas wanted to accomplish as an athlete. Genes wants to become Phineas, so that he will not have to feel guilty anymore. He starts to think that it is the right thing to do because Phineas also encourages the idea of Gene to continue on his legacy, by telling Gene to do the sports for him since he is unable to. He discovers that he is capable of doing hard sports and that going out of his comfort zone can lead to unexpected abilities. Although Genes in denial he also making himself become Phineas, someone who he envies. Gene will eventually have to face his biggest fear, admitting what really happened at the day of Phineas’s accident.
Finally, Phineas’s forgiveness leads Gene to adulthood. All along Gene was in denial of what he did to Phineas on the tree. He pretended that it was not bothering him and went along with life trying to ignore the situation. Eventually, Gene confesses and admits that he was responsible for Phineas's accident. This marks the beginning of when he starts to accept reality for what it is. When Gene and Phineas were in the hospital they get to openly talk about the incident. Yet, Gene misses an opportunity to tell Phineas the truth what happened on the limb. However, Phineas decides to forgive Gene which lets Gene finally accept his wrongdoing. “[Gene] no longer needed this vivid false identity; now [he] was acquiring, [he] felt, a sense for [his] own real authority and worth.” Gene learns that becoming someone else will not help him to move on. He became his own identity, someone he created for himself. Phineas forgiveness helped him realize that accepting the fact is the only way he could be free, and the image of innocence does not matter anymore. After constantly trying to hide his guilt, all he had to do was expose his guilt to Phineas so he could learn and thrive from his mistakes. Eventually, Genes innocence is completely gone, but his experiences will lead him to move on. Unfortunately, Phineas dies and he deals with the lose of Phineas in a much better way than he deals with his lose of innocence.
Gene’s boundaries held against challenges was broken because of his friendship with Phineas, he suffers and learns from change, and that leads him to accept his loss of innocence.
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
changes.