by Sean Quinn
The novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is the story of a young man named Gene his growing up process. (He faces many trials and tribulations that forge him into the man that he is to become). Some of Gene's experiences are tough for him to handle and they all shape him into the man that he is when the story first starts, fifteen years into the future. In the beginning, Gene is your average young man. He likes competition but he takes it a little too seriously. Gene starts to become a man, and with this coming of age, he gains much maturity. Fifteen years after he graduates from Devon, Gene comes back to relive the experiences that made him a man and to bury the past. Gene changes a lot in this novel, from his initial immaturity, to his visit to Leper's house, and then to the adult that he has become.
At the start of the story, Gene is not very mature at all. He thinks that Finny, his best friend, is out to sabotage his studies so that Finny can be the best. Gene reveals his immaturity through his thoughts and actions, such as when he "(slams) closed the French book" (49) and "I stood up and slammed the chair against the desk" (49). If he were mature, he would have been able to express his emotions to Finny in a more calm manner, instead of being like a four year old and throwing a temper tantrum. The "argument" ends and Gene and Finny are friends again. But Gene, being as immature as he is, has to have the "last word" and he accomplishes this by knocking Finny out of a tree. Remembering the incident, Gene recalls, "Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb" (52). Knocking somebody out of a tree because you had the false notion that they were out to get you is very immature thing to do. Later, while in the infirmary, Gene accuses Finny of trying to pull him out of the tree with him even though he knows that Finny was putting out his arm so that Gene could hopefully break his fall. Together, all of this evidence shows that in the beginning of this novel, Gene is extremely immature.
The turning point in the story is when Gene visits Leper at his house. This visit affects Gene emotionally because he becomes aware that somebody knows what really happened in the tree that day, which makes him very nervous. Leper's knowledge of this is made clear when he states, "Like that time you knocked Finny out of the tree" (137). This statement weakens Gene's emotional state by breaking down his sense of security and causing him to relapse towards his initial immaturity. The first signs of relapse are made clear with his action of "(shoving) (his) foot against the rung of (Leper's) chair and (kicking)" (137). After the visit to Leper's, Gene becomes more settled down and relaxed and he starts being very nice to Finny to try and make up for what he did to him in the tree. This shows that he is trying to put things behind him and not hold a grudge. In this action he shows maturity. Even though he is able to put it all behind him for now, he deeply fears that Leper will come forward with the truth.
This story is told in the format of Gene's flashbacks from fifteen years later. He is now an adult and he has been one ever since Finny's funeral. "I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case" (187). At Finny's funeral, he not only buried Finny, but he buried the little green demon inside of him named Jealousy. Throughout the novel, Gene was jealous of Finny, but now, years later, he is able to come to terms and accept the fact that Finny never consciously tried to hurt him, it was all just his paranoid delusions. "All of them, except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way - if he ever attacked at all, if he was indeed the enemy" (196), revealing that there never was any competition between Gene and Finny. Although the fact that he indirectly killed Finny still remains, as an adult, Gene is at peace knowing that Finny never was his "enemy".
Gene evolves a great deal throughout this story. He starts out as your average immature young man and eventually becomes a more mature adult. His immaturity begins and ends with his relationship with Finny. First, he is jealous of Finny and does something very immature, knocks him out of a tree, so that he could be better than Finny and therefore not have to be jealous of him any more. Things settle down for him for a while until he visits Leper's house where he finds out that Leper knows the truth about what happened in the tree. Then Finny dies and along with him goes Gene's immaturity and jealousy. After the termination of their relationship, Gene is free to become a normal adult because he no longer has to face the problems that Finny "caused" for him. Therefore Gene grows and evolves a great deal in A Separate Peace.
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