Friendship In John Knowles A Separate Peace

While there are many themes in John Knowles' novel, “A Separate Peace”, one of the most significant themes is friendship. A friend is, "a person who is well-known to another and regarded with liking and loyalty." Gene is a smart hardworking boy, while Phineas, or Finny, is a great, natural athlete. Gene and Finny met because they are dorm roommates and became friends because they have common interests and because they envy each other's strengths. An example of Gene envying Finny’s personality is when he says, “It was a compliment to me to have such a person choose me to be their best friend” (Knowles 29). “A Separate Peace” shows that jealousy and broken trust between two very close friends, can lead to problems that can not be repaired later
Gene starts to think that Phineas is jealous of his academic skills. Genes opinion makes him sabotage his relationship with Phineas. For example, after Phineas accuses Gene of being jealous, Gene thinks, "It was all cold trickery, it was all calculated, it was all enmity" (Knowles 46). This is one of the worst moments in the relationship between Gene and Phineas. Gene's bad feelings towards Finny really show in the climax, when he causes Phineas to lose his balance and break his leg. Another feeling of jealousy that gene had, was when Phineas almost got in trouble by wearing the school tie as his belt, during that gene thought, “This time he wasn't going to get away with it. I could feel myself becoming unexpectedly excited at that” (27). Gene’s jealousy also caused him to jounce Phineas off the limb of a tree and shatter his leg, which symbolically shattered their
After Phineas shatters his leg, Gene realizes that Phineas was never jealous of his academic abilities and that he was just a kind, good friend. At this point their friendship is becoming rocky. Gene would always visit Finny and apologize to him because he feels so terrible about breaking his leg. Gene also starts trusting Finny more, which is obvious when Finny lies to him that "[Fat old men] cooked up this war fake" (106) and Gene believes him. This situation shows how Gene is becoming much less jealous of Finny and acting more like a loyal friend. Later on, when Gene enters Phineas' room after he sustains a second injury, Finny exclaims, "You want to break something else in me! Is that why you're here?" (175) Finny has lost trust in Gene, and is exclaiming that Gene has broken his legs and his trust. Finny is mad now because he realizes that Gene’s jealousy had caused the injury. This anger blends with the forgiving, envious, trustworthy and nice personality that Finny had before he had been injured.

The theme of friendship and broken trust in “ A Separate Peace” creates many important parts of the book. Friendship, jealousy, and trust helped create the plot because it heavily influenced the way Gene and Phineas acted. Since Phineas was so nice and forgiving, he did not realize that Genes’ jealousy caused him to fall. Also, the theme of friendship showed