Task #4: Text Connections

            In John Knowles’s novel A Separate Peace, the story is being narrated by Gene Forrester, a Devon schoolboy who recounts his story of him and his best friend Finny. I can make a text-to-itself connection by pointing out that Gene is an unreliable narrator. Although he attempts to appear honest and show his real feelings, it can be inferred that he does not expose his true feelings completely, especially in the scene when he makes Finny fall off the tree. Gene merely recites the events in an objective point of view, showing an unusual lack of emotion: “...he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank...” (60). Gene is holding back from the audience, probably to make him seem more morally righteous than he is because he is ashamed of his actions. He does not tell his thoughts or reactions of the moment, only the description of the incident.

            In that this novel was set in wartime, it evidences some similarities to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. This novel tells the story of Paul Baumer who is a German soldier in World War I. Although this novel was about WWI and A Separate Peace was in the time of WWII, the effects of war on the individual are nonetheless universal. Paul tells of his gruesome experiences in war and the despair he encountered, feeling that the war would never end. Gene, though not actually in war yet, can still relate to its effects because everyone is affected by war. He says, “The war will always be fought very far from America and it will never end” (41). Paul and Gene, though from different time periods and supporting different sides of the war, relate in their perception of the infinite war.

            In one point of the novel, Gene is training for the Olympics with Finny because Finny has been crippled from his fall and will have no shot at ever competing in the Olympics; he is living through Gene. Finny told Gene to do thirty pull-ups and Finny “began to count aloud in a noncommittal, half-heard voice” (117). It was this voice that I could visualize and make a text-to-myself connection with because it is so characteristic of any exercise being done—the monotonous counting voice, just getting through the exercise. Then towards the end of the thirty, “the last edges of boredom left [Finny’s voice]; he stood up” (117). As any coach does to make the end seem nearer, to push their athlete to finish, to motivate them to make it through, Finny emphasized the last numbers because the last exercises in the set are the hardest and require the most effort. I have had my fair share of conditioning with coaches or teams and they always count in this way, emitting a “you-can-do-it” attitude. Finny is showing the he believes in Gene and his abilities, just as coaches are supposed to do for their athletes.