Personal Narrative: A Separate Peace

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To Lose Oneself I remember my parents reading me various stories and fairytales about princesses and magicians when I was young. I had wanted nothing more in the world than to become one of those fabled in the tales. To lose myself completely and become anyone other than my plain old self. I was infinitely envious over the wealthy royalty and the powerful villains. I, like Gene Forrester, no longer wanted to be me. But your identity is a key role in your development. Yet, Gene gave is up to virtually become Finny, his athlete, until death do they part. While Finny is recovering at home, Gene is alone at school. He gives little to no effort to anything, and is completely lost in the flow of things. Suddenly, he decides to put on Finny's prized emblem, his pink shirt. When Gene puts it on and looks in the mirror, he states, "I was Phineas, Phineas to the life. I even had his humorous…show more content…
He says, "I did not cry even when I stood watching him being lowered into his family's straight-laced burial ground outside of Boston. I could not escape the feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case," (194). Gene is so confused and entangled in Finny's identity, that even in death, Gene cannot escape. He feels as if he, too, is being lowered down into the tomb. He lost a part to Finny when he asked him to play sports, and now that piece is gone and buried with Finny's body. After he loses this part, he cannot go on any longer, and enlists in the Navy. Enlisting, something he had earlier stated as, "To slam the door impulsively on the past, to shred everything down to my last bit of clothing, to break the pattern of my life," (100). He is going to "impulsively" slam the door on his past, on what is left of his meager identity. He wants to be stripped down to his core, and to cut his ties with all of the outer world, because he no longer knows what to do with himself without

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