Gene And Cohn--Alike And Apart

Gene and Cohn--Alike and Apart

The Sun Also Rises, written by Ernest Hemingway, and A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, both have something in common among the characters. All the characters have hidden sides to them, which they immensely want to reveal to those with whom they communicate and occupy themselves; nonetheless, something within them holds them back, which almost causes severe destruction of their inner selves and those they love and cherish. Two focal characters from each book--Robert Cohn from The Sun Also Rises and Gene Forrester from A Separate Peace--are very much influenced by their companions and surroundings and they both have certain characteristics that are common in many aspects but also drastically different in other features.

The first thing known about Robert Cohn is that he is a boxer. He takes up boxing at the university not because he enjoys it as a sport but only to "counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton (Hemingway 11)" and pretty, soon he becomes the middleweight boxing champion, but no one from his class remembers him. "They did not even remember that he was middleweight boxing champion" (Hemingway 11). Cohn has had an unlucky life and his best friend Jake Barnes, the protagonist and main character of the story, doesn't do much to help him improve it either. After his marriage, he had lost most of the money he had inherited from his father and "just when he had made up his mind to leave his wife she left him..." (Hemingway 12). Later Cohn moves away to California and writes a novel, which, after its publication, brings out an arrogance in him that makes him less shy and gentle. He annoys his friends so much that they soon start bantering him, but Cohn doesn't know when to take a hint and realize that he isn't wanted. He is the only one in the group who hasn't had a firsthand experience with World War I, therefore, he still believes in the pre-war traditional values and beliefs that make him more susceptible to everyone's mockery. His life is based on the books he reads, not real experiences--such as wanting to go to South America and inviting Jake along. Jake tells him to go to go to British South Africa and Cohn says he wouldn't like that because he "never read a book about it..." (Hemingway 18). Later Cohn falls in love with Brett, Jake's lover, and he goes on a trip with her and hurts Jake a great deal. Cohn gets obsessed with Brett and doesn't realize that she doesn't share the same feelings about him as he does about her. This misunderstanding is one of many things that ultimately ruins Cohn.

Gene Forrester tells his story as an adult looking back on his high school years at Devon School for boys. He is an academic student who shares a dormitory with his classmate and best friend Finny, short for Phineas. Gene thinks of himself as a center of attention in which everything reveals around him. He always thought that "the Devon School came into existence the day [he] entered it, was vibrantly real while [he] was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day [he] left" (Knowles 1). He narrates his story as if he's an outsider looking in at everything going on. He hardly spends his time evaluating himself, and when he does, he finds very many faults within himself. He wants to be just like Finny: easygoing, athletic, carefree, and never caring for rules or penalties. But all those things come naturally to Finny, while Gene struggles within himself to accept the belief that Finny is better than him. When he does figure it out, his jealousy is so extreme that he knows he has to bring Finny down to his own level where he can compete with him, not just lose to him. After all, the amazing things Finny has accomplished (like breaking the school record for swimming) makes him "too unusual for--not friendship, but too unusual for rivalry. And there were few relationships...at Devon not based on rivalry" (Knowles 37). The jealousy drives Gene to deliberately shake a limb that Gene and Finny are standing on before jumping into a river. Finny falls from the limb and is crippled for life. Gene is satisfied by his action, but when Finny dies later of the same injury, guilt takes over Gene's emotions as he learns that he has lost what he loved most.

Both Gene and Cohn have some things in common: jealousy, inferiority, guilt, and even some cowardice. They both lived during a period of famous war--Cohn during World War I, Gene during World War II--and were affected by it tremendously. Both played sports--Cohn only took boxing to protect himself, and Gene played to please Finny although he was very afraid of sports.

The jealousy starts somewhere around the middle of each book. Gene starts becoming jealous of Finny when he finds out his natural ability in sports. When Finny beats the school swimming record and refuses to get acknowledged for it, Gene thinks he is trying to show off. Before the notion of enmity and competition had come into his head, Gene "couldn't help envying him [Finny] a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend" (Knowles 18). This ironic thought later contradicts every action that Gene takes. Now however, Gene thinks he and Finny are competing to see who is better. Gene considers Finny the enemy. He thinks Finny is also trying to get ahead of him by doing better in sports, which impels him to do better in academics so he could be head of the class. When he asks Finny if he would mind if Gene ended up being head of class, Finny sarcastically replies "I'd kill myself out of jealous envy." Gene "believed him. The joking was a screen" (Knowles 44). They "were even after all, even in enmity. The deadly rivalry was on both sides after all" (Knowles 46). Cohn displays his jealousy in ways that don't kill his best friend but do damage to others. Cohn's jealousy is directed towards Pedro Romero, the young matador he meets while in Pamplona. Cohn beats him repetitively because he finds out Pedro slept with Brett. "...He went in and found Brett and the bull-fighter chap in the bull-fighter's room, and then he massacred the poor bloody bull-fighter" (Hemingway 205). After that scene, Cohn tries to bring up the old traditional way of smoothing hard feelings, but it is to no avail. "Brett wasn't having any shaking hands, and Cohn was crying and telling her how much he loved her, and she was telling him not to be a ruddy ass. Then Cohn leaned down to shake hands with the bull-fighter fellow. No hard feelings... All for forgiveness. And the bull-fighter chap hit him in the face again" (Hemingway 206). Cohn is so humiliated by this ordeal that