A Separate Peace

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

this is the way children often act, it is in the teenage years realization, along with careful thought and consideration, brings each individual to understand wider prospects of human nature; that people coldly drive ahead for themselves alone. Man’s inhumanity1 to man is a way for people to protect themselves from having pain inflicted on them by fellow humans, and achieving their goals and desires free from interference of others.
The concept of man’s inhumanity to man is developed in John Knowles’ novel, . The primary conflict in this novel centers on the main character, Gene, and his battling of jealousy, paranoia, and inability to understand his relationship with his best friend Phineas. Yet the larger battle of man’s inhumanity to man is portrayed by the backdrop of World War II.
Gene Forrester is an average, studious, young man attending Devon school in New Hampshire during the second World War. His roommate at Devon, Phineas (otherwise known as Finny) sends Gene on ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

Finny’s compassion and risking emotional pain, Gene creates a silent rivalry with Finny, convincing himself that Finny is deliberately attempting to ruin his studies. Gene decides that the two are jealous of each other, and reduces their friendship to cold trickery and enmity.

Gene becomes disgusted with himself after weeks of the silent rivalry. He finally discovers the truth, that Finny only wants the best for Gene, and had no unfavorable intentions. This creates a huge conflict for Gene; not being able to deal with Finny’s purity and his own dark core. On this very day Finny wants to jump off of the tree branch into the Devon river at the same time as Gene, a "double jump", he ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: