Two Friends Gene And Finny example essay topic

Throughout everyone's lives, there are many important necessities we require to help us get through every day drama; friendship, among others is one of those main necessities. Friends are there to fill a void in ones life, to help them along through the rough road we all call life. Friendship should always be a mutual agreement and both sides should contribute to the cause of friendship equally in order to achieve a satisfactory medium. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and John Knowles' A Separate Peace, is about such things as friendship, the relationship that exists within it and innocence that also exist within this relationship. Both books; Of Mice and Men and A Separate Peace orbit around the theme of friendship and one friend being more dominant then the other and the lack of that mutual agreement as defined earlier. In Of Mice and Men, the two friends are Lennie and George; living during the time of great depression the two are helpers at farms and migrate from farm to farm, seeking work and living there part time.

Neither of them has a sense of home, or a sense of belonging but George has a dream of one day owning his own farm and taking care of his mentally disabled friend Lennie; this is what drives him to wake up every morning and continue on his quest. A Separate Peace is a more upper class setting in the sense that the two friends Gene and Finny are two friends at a boarding school during World War II, they both have parents who are well off and the setting is much more joyful as they are children who do not know the circumstances of a hard life of work and family. They are carefree and only live to take care of themselves with the financial help of their parents and through the education instilled upon them through their professors at the Devon School. Even though the books are surrounded by a different setting; one where the two friends are poor and have to work very hard to make a days meal and the other orbits around two friends who the worst is over and you can have the best of me, and to all of the people. And there for the other compaticity. And to all of the compactly.

Tell me come from a financially healthy family and are just having fun without the care and real knowledge of life; they all face the same troubles many face as friends, the theme of friendship and innocence in that friendship are the same themes in both of the pieces of literature regardless of the setting or time frame or financial status of the friends. Friendship as mysterious as it is can begin right away once one meets another, or sometimes it takes years and years of hard work. Whether they meet at an instant time or whether the two couple of friends have had time to work on their friendship, both of the books begin with an illustration of a strong bond between both of the friends. "I laughed along with Finny, my best friend, and also unique". (A Separate Peace: page #21) This quote shows that Finny and Gene are best friends even though they are opposite from each other and unique.

This individual uniqueness is what attracts the two friends together and in turn builds a stronger bond between the two because Finny is so Unique from Finny. Although friendship is very unique, one particular thing about friendship is ones ability to do or perform better in daily activities better then the other, and one friend becomes jealous and envies the other friend for being able to do so. Just like A Separate Peace, where Finny is able to charm his way out of not getting in trouble with Mr. Proud " homme for skipping out on supper the night before. Gene describes Finny as "model boy who was most comfortable in the truant's corner" (A Separate Peace: chapter 2). Moreover, also in the beginning of the book, in chapter three, while on the beach, Finny expresses his feelings towards Gene and tells Gene that he considers him to be his best friend, this confession of feelings touch Gene deeply however, he is unable to admit the same about Finny. This foreshadows the theme of mutual friendship within the two friends.

Gene is also very jealous of Finny; how he is so very athletic and excels in his academics, and at the same time he is able to get into trouble, lead a careless, carefree life and once confronted by administrators of rule breakers he is able to charm his way out a punishment that no other boy at Devon is able to do. Finny is popular because of this and is seen as a leader and this makes Gene very jealous even though he too regards Finny as a good friend but has trouble admitting it to both Finny and himself. When two people are friends, they both rely on each other to help them out throughout every day activities and events, at times one friend relies on the other more then the other might rely on them. This is very evident on Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, mainly because Lennie is mentally handicapped and relies on George to explain everything to him as his adolescent immature mind cannot understand. "And why because... because I got you to look after me and you got me to look after you, and that's why". (Of Mice and Men: page #14) Both friends love each other and there is a strong bond of mutual understanding throughout this friendship, but in this friendship, one friend, Lennie, relies on George for everything because he does not understand life as it is now and the circumstances of his actions.

Lennie feels a sense of security with George and that emphasizes the strength of their friendship. George is always there for Lennie, teaching him what to do, telling where to go; George is illustrated as being Lennie's bodyguard and seeing eye dog, without George, Lennie would be a at completely loss and perhaps maybe even die. Even though George does not feel that same sense of security from Lennie, he is glad that he has that companionship from Lennie as he is a good man and means well all the time. In both of the novels Of Mice and Men and A Separate Peace the theme of friendship is quite evident.

The love for each other is also illustrated very well. However, the sole idea of a mutual friendship and the lack of both friends contributing evenly to the friendship are also very evident. Finny clearly confesses his love for his friend and tells him that he regards Gene is his best friend however Gene has some jealousy towards Finny and therefore cannot admit the same in return. Finny being a friend and having said that not for the reason of hoping to hear Gene confess the same but in reality actually meaning what he said, he does not say anything when Gene does not say anything in return. It seems that he does not even expect or wait around for Gene to say anything in return. Also between Lennie and George, Lennie is very grateful for Georges friendship, even as a mentally handicap, he is aware of this, however it seems that George wishes that Lennie was more normal and could contribute to the friendship like he does.

This shows a benevolent love on both Finny and Lennie. In a friendship, innocence is always there, a friend tries to do something that would not normally be accepted by the other friend and the one friend is kept in the innocent dark and follows along like sheep in the name of friendship regardless of what the circumstance is; and in most cases that innocent friend isn't even aware of the circumstance of particular actions. In both of the novels, two characters are always more innocent then their friend, and that makes the friendship more unique in the sense that they have a friend who has more understanding of the world then they do. Sometimes this is helpful in a friendship in the sense that one friend can help one in making wise decisions and other times it is helpful in the sense that a friend might deny something and keep you in a blind state because they try to protect you from the truth which may hurt or kill you in the end. "When I'm doin' my hair sometimes I jus's et an's t roke it 'cause it's so soft...

' Course That makes it fine. Here - feel right here". (Of Mice and Men: page #90). Lennie is an innocent man who does not understand the consequence of touching Curley's wife's hair. That leads him to breaking her neck and it is this action that drives Lennie to run away from the other ranchers and leads to his death at the hands of his friend George.

George is the only one who understands his friend Lennie and knows that the only way to protect him from the torture that the other ranchers would instill upon him is to kill him. George knows that what Lennie did was out of sheer bad luck and bad coincidence, and there is no intent to kill Curley's wife, but it happened, George also knows that the ranches will not understand this plea and therefore George takes matters into his own hands and protects Lennie by killing him. "I killed my enemy there. Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone" (A Separate Peace: page #196). Gene in this quote does not clearly state who his enemy was, and the reader is left to decide for ourselves whether he is referring to Finny as his enemy or someone else or himself as the enemy. Everyone was a friend to Finny; no one deserved fear and hatred.

This sense of innocence contributed to a state of moral superiority in Finny; and it was this same state that led to his destruction in the end of the novel. It was Gene's jealousy of his friend that triggered the act of shaking the branch before Finny jumped into the lake and it was this act that rendered Finny, a star athlete paralyzed for the rest of his life and forced Gene to live with this guilt forever. It was Finny's innocence in the matter that made him a different person and that enabled him to also change Gene and give him a sense of belonging and purpose. Gene was ready to enlist himself in the military during the war, but with Finny's return to the school, he found a new purpose and that was to reside with Finny. As the book continues, it is Finny's innocence that drives him to become so dependant on Gene and when he finds out the truth behind the accident at the river, it kills him. In both of the book, one of the friends was more innocent then the other and therefore seemed more of a mystery to the every day world.

This innocence unfortunately is what caused their destruction. In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and John Knowles' A Separate Peace the theme of friendship is rather evident and illustrated very clearly. Both authors prove that these two themes can reside within characters with many different traits, settings, social and financial standings and pretty much every different type of individual. The two authors also emphasize the importance of friendship in our lives, to have someone to depend on and to trust. Friends are important in our lives and they are something that everyone needs. A man is lonely without a friend and will continuously have an empty hole in their life without a friend, now that friend can be a real person or not, as long as a friend is a friend then that is all that matters.

Just as long as someone has someone to fall back on, to rely on, to cry on, someone who will lie to us and tell us that everything is okay and protect us from the ugly truth, someone who will try their hardest to see us smiling just for the sake of smiling and make sure our day is that much better. The two authors have also proven that friendship can be ultimately destroyed and can also lead an individual into the unexpected. - End.