English II Ms. Petrauskas

 Times New Roman  12 Point Font  Double Space  One-Inch Margins  Indent the first sentence of each new paragraph  Proper Headings  For Ms. Petrauskas, no contractions are included in MLA Format, as well as, no “I, me, we, us,” personal statements!

Anonymous StudentAnonymous 1 Ms.Petrauskas English II 6 December 2011 The Death of Finny Have you ever became so competitive with someone close that you would do anything just to win against them? In the story A Separate Peace their whole friendship was mainly based off competition and their careless. Gene’s mischievous ways drove him to the belief that his friend was his enemy and to him he searched for revenge. Gene is a normal teenage boy who attends a prep school in England. He has a best friend Phineas, also known as Finny, who both are willing to do anything to go to World War II. Finny is the handsome, athletic, and friendly one where as Gene is just left as a sidekick or just the shadow. In A Separate Peace, the two main cause of Finny accident deal with Gene’s competitive streak and Finny’s carelessness, while the main effect of the accident were Finny not being able to play sports and a strained friendship, which led to Finny’s death. Gene and competitive streak towards Finny drove him to the edge, causing their friendship to become strained, later leading up to Finny’s death. Gene feels as though if he kept up with his academics, then him and Finny will be even, because is so good at athletics. “He had won and been proud to win the Galbrath Football Trophy and there were two or three other athletic prizes he was sure to get this year or next. If I was head of class on Graduation Day and made a speech and won the Ne Plus Ultra Scholastic Achievement Citation, then we both would come out on top, we would be even, that was all we would be even” (Knowles 43). Proving that, Gene felt that his friendship with Finny was based on competition because he wanted to be even.

Anonymous 2 English II Death Do Us Part Have you ever had a jealous friend? In the book A Separate Peace written by John Knowles, it was jealousy between two best friends Finny and Gene. Gene was jealous of Finny. In A Separate Peace the two causes of Finny’s accident was Gene’s jealousy and Finny’s carelessness. The main effect of the accident was Finny putting a stain on their friendship which led to his untimely death. Jealously is a habit every human has towards another. Finny and gene are best friends, but Gene is jealous everything that Finny does as far as athletics abilities and charisma, Finny is bright and charming to everyone but Gene hates that. “He had gotten away with everything. A sudden stab at disappointment, that was because I wanted to see more excitement of fact! That most have been it” (Knowles 21). It is obvious that Gene hates the things Finny does because he can never do anything wrong and always gets away with trouble. He is going to get away with it because he gets away with everything he gets into no matter what it is, and his best friend gets mad because he always does. “The faculty threw its hand over Phineas, and so loosened its grip on all of us” (Knowles 16).

 When you quote something from the novel, it should look like this:  “I killed my enemy there” (Knowles 204).  Notice that there are NO commas in between the quote and the author’s last name. Also, there are NO commas between the author’s last name and the page number.  The period goes AFTER the parentheses!

 This is different… You need to use THREE quotation marks. Here is an example:  “‘No you aren’t, pal, you’re going to study’” (Knowles 58).  Notice that everything remains the same – we only added a third quote to show someone (Finny) was verbally speaking out loud.

 Side A Student’s name Date No title Indent Times New Roman 10 Point Font  Side B Student’s Name Teacher’s Name English II Date Title Indent and double space. Times New Roman 12 Point Font