As Gene becomes obsessed with the jealousy and enmity between himself and Finny, his view of their relationship is hugely changed. After flunking his trigonometry test, Gene asks Finny if he would “mind” if he became valedictorian, Finny jokingly responds “I would kill myself out of jealous envy” (Knowles, 52). Prompting Gene’s misery, who regardes Finny’s response as the truth. Desperate for comfort, Gene tells himself “... you and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone” (Knowles, 53). This is the turning point for Gene in their relationship, where he concludes that Finny is deliberately trying to wreck his grades. Gene regardes them as enemies, each trying to be better than the other. Finny coldly tricking Gene to into wasting his time, and himself continuously striving to outdo Finny as to satisfy his own jealousy. Jealousy and envy plays an essential role in the novel A Separate Peace causing the narrator Gene to harm his friend; Finny.
I totally agree with what you said here. At first I was a bit confused about what was going on with the shift in Gene's attitude towards Finny, but as you said, its trying to even it out. I think what Gene is feeling here is that he isn't really good enough, and thats why he has this change in moods. Throughout the book, Gene keeps talking about how he feels like Finny is just this great person, and this scene makes it clear what he's feeling.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and I think it kind of foreshadowed that this would happen back on page 40 and since Finny kept excelling, this was preventing Gene from keeping up his grades. This caused this tension that held their friendship at a stopping point because if somebody else is gaining an advantage from your loss, you're going to get upset and Gene wasn't ready for this. Gene eventually just hears people saying how perfect Finny is and can't take it anymore, causing their friendship to deteriorate.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said here but I also think that it is important to address the fact that this is all in Gene’s head, he doesn’t know for a fact that Finny is trying to ruin his academic career. We learn later in the chapter that Finny wasn’t trying to ruin they’re a relationship, he was just trying to have fun. Because of this, I think that Gene and Finny’s friendship will be short-lived because there will always be that thought in Gene’s subconscious mind that there is a deep rivalry hidden under their friendship.
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