Kevin McAdam
English 10 Honors/ Mr. George
12/10/08
A Separate Peace Essay

A SEPARATE PEACE
One of the most difficult periods in anyone’s life is the transition from adolescence to adulthood. It is the time when all of the hopes and dreams a person had as a child have been thrust upon him and have become challenges and goals to accomplish in the years to come. As you get older, you have to make more decisions, and for people like Gene Forrester, many of those decisions change his life. In “A Separate Peace”, Gene starts out as a very shady person; and throughout the course of the story, he has develops from a boy to a man in such a short period of time. The certain ways in which Gene has become a man are through dealing with emotions properly, coping with disaster, and becoming aware of things around him. A major part of adulthood is how you control your emotions in certain situations. It is very common to see a five year old child throw a fit about not getting a toy that he wants. However, all adults must know that they must control their feelings and have maturity in unfamiliar situations. Even when that child throws a fit, there is some restraint over his action because there is still the level-headed adult there to punish him, if he goes beyond his limits. If adults go overboard with passion, no one can stop them. When Gene makes Finny fall out of the tree, he obviously loses control of his emotions but there is no one there to stop him. As a sign that Gene is growing from a boy to a man, he immediately regrets making Finny fall and realizes that Finny is only trying to be his friend. Even though Gene commits such an unfortunate act, Gene’s ability to learn from that mistake shows that he knows he must be a better person. One of Gene’s biggest flaws is that he is blind to the fact that Finny is not in competition with him. Gene wants to be better than Finny so badly that he completely loses track of all the qualities of a good person. When Gene pushed Finny out of the tree, Gene was too open with his emotions and expressed them too vagrantly. If Gene had just shown a little self-control, then Finny would not have died later on. Although Gene could not control himself there, he was able to control himself when Finny died. Finny was his best friend, but he was able to remain strong after his death as explained in the quote, “I did not cry then or ever about Finny. I did not cry even when I stood watching him being lowered into his family’s strait-laced burial ground outside of Boston” (Knowles, 194). Gene, who was once paranoid and emotional, now can control his emotions like adults should in difficult situations. Throughout the story, a strong test for Gene’s emotions is how he is able to cope with disaster. Gene coped with disaster in many different ways, but each time he became more mature in the process. When Gene pushed Finny out of the tree, Gene made up for it with several acts of kindness towards Finny. Gene would help Finny with whatever he wanted and listened to whatever Finny said. The most important thing in Gene’s life became restoring the friendship between him and Finny. Gene obviously made great strides towards turning his life around and getting rid of all the envy and jealousy he had in his body. The only thing that halted Gene’s progress was that Gene felt too much guilt towards Finny and could not forgive himself for what he has done. As mentioned before, Gene did whatever Finny asked him to, and that was bad for Gene to be pushed around all the time. Guilt is what took the place of jealousy and envy when Gene tried to make his life better, which was just as bad as the jealousy. Gene shows how he did whatever Finny wanted him to out of guilt in this quote, “’Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,’ and I lost a part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas” (85). Until Gene could find something to fill the void of jealousy, only bad things would take its place. Finally, Gene realized how Finny had been helping him all along. Gene was able to take the good parts of Finny and place them in that void. By doing this, Gene was able to win the battle of being a savage and a good boy. Gene had been a savage before, but with the help of others he was able to help his growth towards becoming a man. Finny’s death is another step forward in adulthood for Gene, because he is not as sorrowful as the first incident with Finny. Gene does not feel as much guilt, because he had come to terms with what had happened, and understood that Finny’s death was very surprising and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Gene advanced further into adulthood was because of his ability to see things with a level head and to go at things with an open mind. One of the most important things you must do while in school, playing sports, or starting a new job is that you must always be open-minded and accepting of criticism. Stubbornness is a habit that is very difficult for children and adults to get rid of as they get older. Another problem of Gene was that he was too focused on what he believed and was too selfish to listen to others when they said Finny was not his rival. Gene’s stubborn behavior was exhibited in this quote, “You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead 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” (53). If Gene had just listened to that, then he could have realized that everything Finny did was not to impress Gene, but for himself. Again, after Gene pushed Finny out of the tree, he seemed to take on an entirely new way of life as he started to listen to others more. Gene knew that he had to get rid of his jealousy, so by being open-minded, he was able to take on the best qualities of Finny and become a more established adult. Everybody knows that young children are always very hyper and have a difficult time focusing on one topic. As they grow older, they become more mature, and find it hard to relax and stop focusing. One more way Gene became more open-minded was how during the summer Finny thought of creating blitzball to help other students get their minds of the war. It was a lot of fun for the students, but it really never took them away from the war at all; because after the fun was over, they still had all the army recruiters around them and ads in the newspaper telling them about the war. Gene and his friends all approached manhood; because later in the year, they had become very aware of the war as they enlisted into different branches of the military and not even blitzball could take their minds off of that. So by entering adulthood, people, like Gene, find themselves staying more on task and being more aware of the things happening in their lives because they are adults. This story shows how a young boy like Gene can become a mature, responsible man through dealing with emotions properly, coping with disaster, and becoming aware of things around him. Gene Forrester becomes a man the way someone should. He went through pain and anguish to learn the qualities of a responsible man, such as, respect, generosity, and honesty. Through his tough experiences at Devon, Gene became the type of man who can go out into the world and not be affected by anything that happens to him.