in enmity. You are both coldly driving forward for yourselves alone.

You did hate him for breaking that school swimming record, but so

what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last

term. You would have had an A in that one except for him. Except

This is what Gene Forrester thought of Phineas (Finny) in John Knowles book, A Separate Peace. Gene absolutely hated Finny, but continues to pretend to be Finny’s best friend. At the end of the book, Gene learns that it was not Phineas who was his enemy, but the inner demons of hate, envy, and jealousy. Gene learns he staged a war against Phineas because he had “something ignorant in the heart”. Gene finds out he also “was on duty [his] whole time at school,” As Gene says, “I killed my enemy there.” So Gene understands his enemy must have been the demons within him. Gene also knew of this fear of being second best and of jealousy, but he could not face it. He decided to change his enemy from the demons to his best friend Finny. Then he built “ these Maginot Lines against this enemy [he] thought [he] saw across the frontier…if he was indeed the

Gene was full of ignorance at the Devon School. Gene was jealous of Phineas and could not face how jealous he was. Once, Finny wore a pink shirt and the Devon school tie as a belt. When the substitute dean noticed this, Gene thought Finny would have been finally caught for breaking the school policy. He was wrong, Phineas once again broke a school rule and got away with it. Gene is quoted for saying, “I felt a sudden stab of disappointment. That was because I just wanted to see some more excitement; that must have been it.” Also, when Finny breaks a school swimming record without a day of practice, Gene develops an even worse case of the green flu. “Perhaps for that reason his accomplishment took root in my mind and grew rapidly in the darkness where I was forced to hide it.” He could not face the fact that he envied Finny and worshiped the ground he walked on, so he chose to believe Phineas was only being friends with Gene to pull down Gene’s grades. Gene would have had an A in Trigonometry, but Finny took Gene to the beach in the middle of his studies so Gene was not able to study for a test the next day. Gene also thought Finny made up the game Blitzball so Gene was not able to study because of Blitzball games every night. After all this anger and hatred builds up, Gene is unable to hold in his emotions and lashes out in one quick but deadly punch. “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to at me for an instant with extreme interest, and

Some topics in this essay:
Phineas Gene, Gene Finny, Studying Gene, Peace Gene, Blitzball Gene, , School Gene, Thinking Finny, Finny Gene, Maginot Lines, gene finny, finny enemy, phineas jealous finny, gene able, able study, phineas enemy, demons gene, phineas gene, jealous finny, devon school, school swimming record, gene able study, inner demons,