A Seperate Piece

In English we are reading A Seperate Piece by John Knowles, the main characters are Gene and Phineas. At first, they both seem to be "best friends" but as the book goes on, it seems like they start to separate. Both boys seem to have different opinions and thoughts of the war. They both go to the same private school and are in an Era where the war is taking place. Many young boys are being drafted into the war. While Phineas seems to be frightened of the war and being drafted, Gene is ready and is committed to the war. 

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  John Knowles has a great sense of writing. Knowles deeply describes his book and shows how war can change many people's lives. Knowles also shows the strong friendship between Phineas and Gene. While at first Phineas and Gene are "best friends", their friendship soon starts to fall apart. Like most friendships, there are always fights and anger that goes on sometimes, but after a while it goes away.  Phineas was a non-academic student, who stuck to sports. He played almost every sport and even broke a school swimming record. Phineas is the sort of young boy that likes to show off how good he is in sports, but as he breaks the record, he never wants anyone to know about it. On the other hand, Gene is the type of young boy who is very studious and intelligent. He is very academic and has a decorum attitude. Gene is looked on most as the kind, innocent boy, while Phineas takes on challenges. As Phineas makes the Summer Session Club and begins to want to take Gene to the limb, to jump it, Gene begins to sense that Phineas is taking away his time and distracting him from his studies. Gene abhors the fact that Finny keeps taking away his time, but maintains the positive side of their friendship. After Gene got asked to go to the limb by Finny, Gene gets angry and lets out his emotions to show how he feels. Gene realizes that he was mistaken about the rivalry between them and goes to the limb. As Finny goes to the edge of the limb, Gene bends his knees and jounces the limb. Phineas falls into the bank and breaks his leg. 

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As Gene knows that he jounced the limb, he doesn't want to say anything, but as soon as the doctor says that sports are over for Finny, Gene was contrite and told Phineas. Gene hated the fact that he jounced the limb because there was no reason for him to do that. Gene's actions were heinous. Finny doesn't believe him, but Gene knows it's the truth. 

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Now that Phineas isn't at school, Gene begins to want to enlist with Brinker. They begin to think that the military is going to be great and they do not understand the consequences that there may be after or during the war. The army is no place for young boys, but Gene and Brinker agree to enlist together. This creates irony because that same night Finny comes back and right away Gene decides to not join the army. Phineas denies that there is a war going on and says that it is all just a conspiracy to keep young men from eclipsing the older authorities. Finny tells Gene that he wants Gene to replace him in sports and Finny collaborated with Gene and he agreed to train Gene to go to the Olympics. This is ironic because Finny was once that super star athlete and now that he can't play sports, he gives Gene a chance to be the new Phineas ! Leper was the first one in their class to join the army and soon he was sent off to the war. When Leper came back , he was a whole different person. Leper has been transformed into a different person by the war and has gone mad. Gene sees how Leper reacts at the war and realizes that the war is not what he thought it was like. That it will mess him up just like Leper. 

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http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html

This link relates to how war is bad. War is very destructive, not only to the human body, but to the head. War really messes you up and can cause very much damage. The war is something that you should decide to join after much thinking because there is no guarantee that you will come back to your family. This link shows the many casualties that happen all around the world.