Quizzical and compelling quotes related to A Separate Peace
There are two options for this assignment...
(A) Find passages from A Separate Peace that show just what type of person either Gene or Finny is. Look for quotes that seem to illustrate either one of the boy's personality, character traits, and/or major motivations.
(B) Find a passage from The Kite Runner which illustrates a significant connection to large ideas and themes from A Separate Peace.
Post your selected passage here, using proper MLA format for quotes, like this: "...blah, blah, blah text of quote blah blah blah" (34).
Your passage should be long enough to be generally understood out of context, but not more than a paragraph at the most. When we're finished, we should have a good resource of possible quotes to use for the upcoming paper. Good luck.
40 comments:
"He had the blue kite in his hand, that was the first thing I saw. And I can't lie now, and say my eyes didn't scan it for rips." (78)
~The Kite Runner
"I don't know, I must have just lost my balance. It must have been that. I did have this idea, this feeling that when you were standing there beside me, y-i don't know, i had a kind of feeling. But you can't say anything for sure from just felings. And this feeling does make any sense.
Gene:
"Hit me! I looked at him. Hit me! You can't even get up! You can't evecome near me!"
AnneMarie
Gene:
"If i was head of the class on Graduation Day and made a speech and won the Ne Plus Ultra Scholastic Achievement Citation, then we would both come out on top, we would be even, tht was all. We would be even...." (pg 52)
“Maybe it would be best, lessen his suffering and mine too. Either way, one of us had to go.” (102)
Kite Runner
Sean P.4
b.) From the Kite Runner
"I lifted Hassan's mattress an planted my new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it. I waited another thirty minutes, Then I knocked on Baba's door and told what I hoped to be the last in a long line of shameful lies." (116)
"I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan, and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. I ran." (77)
Gene
"It was suprising how well we got alongin these weeks. Sometimes I found it hard to remember his treachery, sometimes I discovered myself thoughtlessly slipping bak into afection for him again."(55)
A Separate Peace – Finny talking about Gene
“We kid around a lot and everything, but you have to be serious sometimes, about something. If you’re really good at something, I mean if there’s nobody, or hardly anybody, who’s as good as you are, then you’ve got to be serious about that.
"He knew I'd betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone..." (105)
Colleen
In the Kite Runner Amir overhears In chapter 3 of The Kite Runner, Baba tells Rahim Khan that "there is something missing in that boy" He insists that if he hadn't seen the doctor pull Amir out of his mother with his own eyes, he would never believe he was his own son. This makes Amir extremly jealous and competitive towards Hassan because his dad never said anything like that about Hassan. He loves Hassan.
This relates to A Separate Peace when Gene is competive and jealous towards Finny throughout the book. In both stories the main characters have inner conflicts with themselves and the jealousy problems that they are having with someone else.
Both of these books share the same theme in that sense of inner jealousy conflicts, and not thinking that they are good enough
"Hassan was crying. Ali pulled him close, clutched him with tenderness. Later, I would tell myself I hadn't been envious of Hassan." The Kite Runner, page 35
Amir is showing how he is somewhat jealous of Hassan in this passage. He envies the fact that Hassan is loved by his father and is shown compassion by him. Amir, on the other hand, is not shown compassion by his father and believes he does not love him as much. In A Separate Peace, Gene is jealous of Finny. He envies the fact that Finny has everything. Finny is athletic, strong, adventurous, and popular with his peers and teachers. It seems as though he can get away with anything. Jealousy can overpower us all. In The Kite Runner, when Hassan is cornered in an alley way by kids who dislike him, Amir sees and lets it happen because he is jealous of him and scared. In A Separate Peace, Gene's jealousy of Finny leads him to push him out of a tree.
"I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That's what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan. That's what I made myself believe. I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart: He was just a Hazara, wasn't he?"(77)
Finny:
"I don't know, I must have just lost my balance. It must have been that. I did have this idea, this feeling that when you were standing there beside me, y-i don't know, i had a kind of feeling. But you can't say anything for sure from just felings. And this feeling does make any sense. It was a crazy idea, i must have been delirious."
pg.66
"You never waste your time. That's why I have to do it for you." (p. 51)
Finny
Page 112
"I know, I know. I'm going to work. I really am going to work. You're going to pull me through mostly, but I am going to work as hard as I can.
Andrew per. 4
"I used to tell Hassan that someday we'd walk on a strip of seaweed- strewn beach, sink our feet in the sand , and watch the water rude from our toes . The first time I saw the pacific, I almost cried" (136)
-The Kite Runner
A seperate peace....Gene
"it struck me then that i was injuring himagain.it occured to me taht this could be an eeven deeper than what i had done before......had i really and definately and knowingly done it to him after all?i could nt remember ,i couldnt think.Howeverit was ,it was worse for him to know it.i had to take it back."
-neka
A seperate peace....Gene
"it struck me then that i was injuring him again.it occured to me that this could be an even deeper than what i had done before......had i really and definately and knowingly done it to him after all? i could nt remember ,i couldnt think.Howeverit was ,it was worse for him to know it.i had to take it back." (pg70)
-neka
"The thought was, You and Finny were even already."(53) This quote relates to The Kite Runner as well. Amir realized that his father loves Hassan more than him. So Amir plants the gifts he got for his birthday under Hassan's bed so he will get blamed to get even, just like when Finny falls out of the tree because Gene jounces the limb.
Finny:
"...in those days almost always moved in groups the size of a hockey team." (15)
Finny must have had a good personality to be popular enough to travel in "groups the size of hockey teams."
"...if Finny pushed hard enough, that there might be a flow of simple, unregulated friendliness between them, and such flows were one of Finny's reasons for living." (22)
Finny lived the suspense that he had experienced when he had to argue or fight his way out of a situation he should not have been in.
"Phineas was the essence of this carless peace." (24)
Finny enjoyed peace and having everything settled and steady.
Gene:
"But I always jumped. Otherwise I would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable." (34)
Gene compares himself to Finny way to much and it isn't senseable to constantly think of another person and compare yourself to them all of the time.
"Sure, he wanted everything to share everything with me, especially his procession of D's in every subject. The way he, the great athlete, would be way ahead of me. It was all cold trickery, it was all calculated, it was all enmity." (53)
Gene talks a lot of stuff that he shouldn't say. He's always bad-talking Finny behind his back and it's aggrivating. This quote above shows the way Gene over-analyzes the littlest concepts, ever. It also shows how he needs to chill out and stop over-thinking every concept.
Theresa p4.
A) "My misery was too deep to speak any more. I scanned the page; I was having trouble breathing, as though the oxygen were leaving the room" (53)
This quote shows how Gene's personality is paranoid and deep. He takes things too serioulsy and overthinks too much. When he does this he only hurts himself.
Finny-
"Phineas was shocked at the idea of me leaving. in some way he needed me. I was the least trustworthy person he had ever met. He wanted me around. The war then pased away from, and dreams of enlistment and escape and a clean start lost thier meaning for me."
Gene
"was that it! with his head bent over in the lamplight I could discern a slightmound in his brow above the eyebrows, the faint bulge which is usually believed to indicate mental power. Phineas would be the first to disclaim any great mental perwe in himslef. Bt what did go on in his mind? I I was the head of the class and won that prize, then we would be even...."
Gene says "I think I'd better get back to the station. I'm already a day late at devon. Finny, "You aren't going to start living by the rules, are you?" Pg. 71
Kenny W.
B) "I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either. Not in the usual sense, any how." (25)
- The Kite Runner
"Then a second realization broke as clearly and bleakly as dawn at the beach. Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies. That explained blitzball, that explained the nightly meetings of the Super Suicide Society, that explained his insistence that I share all his diversions." (53)
Chapter 3, pg. 33
Yes, he had practically saved my life. He had also practically lost it for me. I wouldn't have been on that damn limb except for him. I wouldn't have turned around, and so lost my balance, if he had't been there. I didn't need to feel any tremendous rush of gratitudetoward Phineas.
The Kite Runner:
"...Baba would buy it for me and then he'd buy it for Hassan too... wished he'd let me be the favorite." (51)
b. "I watched Hassan get raped. I said to no one. A part of me was hoping that someone would wake up and hear so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. That night I became an insomniac." (86)
Chloe
Nick period 6
I spent as much time as i could alon in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where i was, even who i was.
page 62
"you, Quackenbush, don't know aynthing about who i am." That launched mee, and i had to go on and say, "or anything else." "Listen you maimed son-of-a-bitch..." i hit him hard across the face. i didn't know why for an instant; it was almost as though i were maimed. then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me.
pg.79
kyle naimo
I found some sheets and made up his bed for him. He wasnt a bit sensitive about being helped.
Quote from "The Kite Runner"
"But he's not my friend! I almost blurted. He's my servant! Had I really thought that? Of course I hadn't. I hadn't. I treated Hassan well just like a friend, better even, more like a brother. But if so, then why when Baba's friends came to visit with their kids, didn't I ever include Hassan in our games? Why did I play with Hassan only when no one else was around?" (41)
Threts to friendship
Megan H. period 6
Justin Norman Period 6
Gene: Page 52
""You would'nt" I wasn't sure I had the control to put this question-"mind if i wound up head of the class, would you.""
""Mind?"" Two clear green-blue eyes looked at me."
Fat chance you've got, anyway with Chet Douglass around." But you wouldnt mind, would you" I repated in a lower more distinct voice."
"his glance flikered out at me from his defeat, and i saw to my surprise that i had, by making a little fun of him, brought upon myself his unmixed hatred. for my escape this was a price i was willing to pay. page (91)
Then a second realization broke as clealy and bleakly as dawn at the beach. finny had deliberayely set out to wreck my studies. that explained blitzball, that explained the nightly meeting of the super suicide society, thatexplained his insistence that i share all his diversions. the way i blevied that you're-mybest friend blabber! the shadow falling across his fac if i didnt want to do some-thing with him! his instinct for sharing everythingwith mw? sure, he wanted to share every thing with me especially his procession of D'S
(53)
Quotes from "The Kite Runner" describing the destructive power of jelousy and insecrity.
"I lifted Hassan's matress and planted my new watch and a handful of Afghan bills under it. I waited 30 minutes. Then, I knocked on Baba's door and told him what I hoped would be the last in a long line of shameful lies." (104)
"I hit him with another pomergrant in the shoulder this time. The juice splattered his face. `Hit me back,' I spat. `Hit me back, goddam you!' I wished he would. I wished he'd give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night." (92)
Jenna g. Period 6
"You never waste your time. That's why I have to do it for you."
"Anyway," I grudgingly added,"somebody's got to be the head of the class."
"You see, I knew that's what you were aiming at," he concluded quietly."(51)
"I thought about Hassan's dream, the one about us swimming in the lake. There is no monster, he'd said, just water. Except he'd been wrong about that. There was a monster in the lake. It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the murky bottom. I was that monster.
That was the night I became an insomniac."
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