A Separate Peace by John Knowles: Gene's War Against Finny

In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, an adolescent named Gene faces internal conflicts in his life while World War Two is going on.

He has a friend named Phineas whom Gene purposefully broke his legs. Throughout the book, Gene describes the events that occurred during their friendship until Phineas dies the constant ‘war’ Gene is in against himself and Phineas connects very well to the title of the novel, “A Separate Peace” in which by the end Gene obtains peace with the metaphorical war with Finny, while at the same time, a war is going on. The novel A Separate Peace is titled as such in order to expose Gene’s personal conflicts (war) against Finny. The reason Gene originally breaks Finny’s legs is due to a conflict (war) that Gene believed existed. In the chapter, Finny broke his legs, and Gene began thinking up a huge theory that views Finny as a mean person trying to always be better than Gene.

Gene cites some circumstantial evidence that suppons his claim and then he dismisses his distaste of Finnyi Later, Gene does something that causes Finny to fall off of a branch and break his legs, He later calls it a reflex that was not premeditated, but it does not seem to be the case Gene did not like what he thought Finny was doing, and that part of him reacted at that defining moment. Gene secretively breaking Finny‘s legs illustrates Gene’s war in his own mind against Finny.

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Finny’s original belief that WW2 is not truly happening is a metaphor to what is actually happening is Gene‘s mind. For most of the book, Finny has the opinion that WW2 is a lie created by a certain group of people. This relates to how Gene believes in something completely outrageous, such as that his best friend dislikes him. Later in the novel Finny tells Gene that he knew the war was going on the whole time.

This relates to how Gene knew Finny was a friend, but Gene simply did not want to believe it. In the end of the book, Gene changes and believes that finny was innocent and that he was not his enemy. The belief Finny had illustrates the war Gene had inside him at the time about whether Finny was a true friend or not. Throughout the novel, Gene has different thoughts about the true motives of Finny. Which causes him to react in hostile ways at times The novel‘s title, “A Separate Peace” not only perfectly explains how Gene is taking part in a war of ideas in his own mind, but also says something about how humans sometimes think and operate Humans have lots of doubts about what others think and what their motives are, and they tend to have big discussions within their own minds over what others believe about them. The title of the novel “A Separate Peace” helps to prepare the reader for Gene’s completely internal war that he is fighting in his mind