The Narrator's Loss of Identity in A Separate Peace, a Novel by John Knowles

In the beginning of A Separate Peace the narrator Gene is introduced as an academic, rule-following boy, however, as the novel continues Gene starts to lose his identity and portrays acts of violence. Gene describes his experience at devon as his own war, and much of this is caused by the fact that other classmates, like Phineas, influence him more than he would like. Also, his jealousy towards others, even his best friend, caused problems for Gene resulting in violent actions.

Driven by jealousy, anger, and guilt, Gene loses his identity causing him to show uncharacteristic acts of violence toward the people he cares about most. The first and most important example of violence Gene displays in the book is when he ”accidentally” shakes the branch, while in the tree, causing Phineas to fall. As a result of the fall, Phineas shatters his leg and is no longer able to participate in sports Phineas, like most of the other characters, sees the incident as an accident but Gene knows that in reality it was not.

Gene had made up a scenario in his head that Finny was not actually his friend but rival trying to eliminate competition by ruining Genes grades. Gene believed this, because of little things Finny said and did. For example Phineas got Gene to come to the beach with him, which was not only forbidden to do at Devon, but Gene also had a test the next day. Phineas, after Gene tried explaining the importance of getting back to the school before his test, breezily stated, ”You work too hard”.

Get quality help now

Doctor Jennifer

Verified

Proficient in: A Separate Peace

5 (893)

“ Thank you so much for accepting my assignment the night before it was due. I look forward to working with you moving forward ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Also, after the beach incident, Gene’s only thoughts were, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies”. This made Gene believe that Finny was a rival and gave him the motive to make Finny fall from the tree.

That is one example of violence Gene shows in the novel because of his loss of identity. Another example of an uncharacteristic act of Violence Gene displays in A Separate Peace is when kicks Leper out of his chair. Gene portrays this Violent act because he is not only infuriated with what Leper is saying to him but is also boiling with guilt. For instance. when Leper says. “You always were a savage” it starts to anger Gene. He also feels an enormous amount of guilt when Leper says “Like that time you knocked Finny out of the tree” and the guilt causes him to rage and attack Leper. Immediately after Gene realizes that he should not have abused Leper because Leper is ill and does not know what he is saying.

This shows that Gene’s act of violence is purely driven by the guilt he has for pushing Finny out of the tree and anger towards himself, throughout the novel A Separate Peace the main character Gene loses his identity because he is faced with jealousy, guilt, and anger. To deal with these emotions Gene turns to violence against the people he most cared about. For example pushing his best friend, finny, out of a tree because Gene is simplyjealous. And kicking Leper out of his chair to deal with the guilt and anger Gene has formed. At first Gene is introduced as a studious young man, but as the novel progresses he loses himself and uses violence to deal with him emotions.