Summary:
In "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles, the characters come to understand the difference between illusion and reality, innocence and experience, and compassion and hatred. Phineas uses denial to protect himself against the reality of war.
When does one need protection from his life? This could be answered in many different ways. One person can need protection to hide from an experience that's been haunting their lives like a death in the family. They need this protection to help them move on in life and find peace within themselves again. Some need protection from war in the thought of death during battle. This kind of protection is more physical then emotional in that it's asking for protection that would shield any bullet that could enter the body. Others need an emotional type of protection from jealousy and hatred and to escape their fears and from truth. This could be needed to help one get through the day and live without having to hide from other people's jealousy and hatred. In "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles, Phineas needs protection from the truth and reality. With this, John Knowles compares reality and the truth by exhibiting the cast as a barrier that protects Phineas from the world around him, as well as the juxtaposition of illusion and reality, of innocence and experience, and of compassion and hatred.
Phineas' protecting attitude towards the war and life in general is a result of his ambitious character not wanting to accept the changes around him, leading him into denial for his friendship with Gene and the world outside the Devon school. When Phineas hears about the war, he puts himself into complete defiance as he tells Gene, "Don't be a sap,' he gazed with cool self-possession at me, 'there isn't any war...that's what this whole war story is [; a] medicinal drug" (107). Phineas doesn't believe that there is a war going on. This is one of the things that Phineas hides from and can't face. Towards the end, Phineas tells Gene that the one thing Phineas is disappointed about not being able to do once he breaks his leg again, is that he can't go away to war. This shows that Phineas probably told Gene that he didn't believe in war to hide his real feelings. When Phineas shows that he is in denial about reality and can't handle the truth, Gene states, "[T]o begin joking, would have been a hypocritical denial, of what had happened, and Phineas was not capable of that" (109). Gene doesn't think that Phineas can handle the truth and won't accept reality. This shows the way Gene sees Phineas: as a person who can't handle reality and who is living his life in denial. Phineas was in such a state that he couldn't even be joked around with as a result of his unbearable attitude towards his leg situation. As the fact of reality, when Phineas was pushed from the tree by Gene, started to be seen before him, Phineas cries, "I don't care,' [Phineas] interrupted in an even voice, so full of richness that it overrode all the others. 'I don't care" (168). Instead of facing the fact that he was pushed out of the tree and move on to other things, he dwelled on the past, not believing anything. This shows the way Phineas views his life and his attitude towards the world, which was that he spends his time running from the truth about how he fell from the tree and that there isn't a war occurring around him.
Phineas lives his life by hiding from the truth, the cast acting like a barrier preventing him from accepting the differences, both emotional and physical, that result from his broken leg. The cast represents his deception of Gene, reality, and what makes him realize that he will never be able to play the sports that play a major part in his life. When Phineas is notified that he will never be able to play sports again, all he wants is someone to carry his sportsmanship for him, and that is when he tells Gene, "Listen, pal, if I can't play sports; you're going to play them for me,' and I lost apart of myself to him then and a soaring sense of freedom, revealed that this might have been my purpose from the first; to become a part of Phineas" (77). Phineas loses the ability to play sports and wants Gene to do that for him, but Phineas also loses his innocence. Gene has this "soaring sense of freedom" because Phineas wants him to be his friend even after he knows he pushed him from the tree. He feels as if his whole purpose after Phineas' accident was to become a part of him and do the things that he no longer will be able to do. It suddenly occurs to Gene that Phineas may never be able to walk again, let alone play sports, and this is when he states, "Then my eyes fell on the bound cast white mass pointing at me, and as it was always to do, it brought me down out of Finny's world of invention, down again as I had fallen after awakening that morning, down to reality, to the facts" (107 and 108). Gene didn't realize the results of his actions toward Phineas until Gene saw Phineas' cast. Finny had a world of invention where he wouldn't face the truth and the cast acted like a barrier that repelled Phineas from facing that truth. When Phineas tells Gene his feelings of hatred towards him, Gene's description of Phineas is, "He struggled clumsily for such a length of time that even my mind, slowed and shocked as if it had been, was able to formulate two realizations: that his leg was bound...and that he was struggling to unleash his hate against me" (176). Gene knows about Phineas' feelings of hatred towards him and how Phineas feels about the whole accident. The cast wasn't only a barrier for the truth, but a wall that was trying to unleash his hate for Gene and for what he did to Phineas' glorious life.
Phineas' death occurs mainly because everything is resolved between him and Gene and the marrow that was filled with denied truth was finally released. Phineas' life is also ended because the things that he spent his time hiding from, not being able to play sports, and the fact that Gene pushed him out of the tree, he finally admits to and so when he dies, it shows that he has given up. When Gene sees Phineas, he is forced to see beyond the cast and broken leg, and says of Phineas, "I had never seen an invalid whose skin glowed with health...or one who used his arms and shoulders on crutches as though on parallel bars, as though he would do a somersault on them if he felt like it" (96). Phineas denies he was every hurt and is able to do a somersault on parallel bars and Gene describes Phineas as a glowing human being even though he has a broken leg. This shows that Gene cares for Phineas and is able to see past the cast to Phineas' heart. Phineas is able to do everything he wants to as long as he believes that nothing is wrong with his leg. When Phineas questions his broken leg, he says, "Isn't the bone supposed to be stronger when it grows together over a place where it's been broken once"" (147). This quote symbolizes many different things. The bone symbolizes his heart once he finds his way to the truth and reality. He questions if the bone will be strong again because he is worried he will never be cured. This probably scares him and that is why he questions it. When he is confronted with the facts that support the thought that Gene pushed Phineas out of the tree, Phineas is so shocked that he suddenly walks backward, "The excellent exterior acoustics recorded his rushing steps and the quick rapping of his cane along the corridor and on the first steps of the marble stairway, Then these separate sounds collided into the general tumult of his body falling clumsily down the white marble stairs" (169). Phineas just gave up when he started to fall and his body fell "clumsily" down the staircase. This fall represents his attitude towards his accident in that he doesn't struggle once he feels himself fall. Phineas' fall represents his shock when Gene tells him that he purposely pushed him out of the tree because up until this point, Gene has never really confronted Phineas and told him that he jounced the limb. Phineas couldn't obviously handle the truth because once he eventually acknowledged the things he spent hiding from, he gave up and let the marrow that was filled with denied truth kill him.
Reality and truth are compared through a cast protecting Phineas from the world around him and the results of his broken leg, helping him to understand the difference between illusion and reality, innocence and experience, and compassion and hatred. Phineas spends his year in Devon hiding from the war and his broken leg due to his fall from the tree. His cast protects Phineas from reality, helping him turn away from the accident and from the war occurring outside his boundaries. John Knowles uses Phineas as an example of someone who spends his time denying reality, and when he finally faces the truth, he gives up and lets his life dissolve before him. We should never deny what is going on around us because when we finally do, it could be too late to do anything about it. John Knowles also uses the relationship between Phineas and Gene to help us understand why it is important not to spend one's time being jealous of another person, and why it is also important to confront them with one's problems so as to not cause any physical harm.
This is the complete article, containing 1,637 words
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