A Separate Peace: ResponsibilitySay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay A liability is something for which one is held accountable. People often say that you are responsible for your words and actions; if something happens as a result of something one does, one is responsible for it. But is it possible that something can be the result of different actions of different people who are therefore equally responsible, or is there always one person who is most responsible for the incident in question? One such situation where this question is relevant is present in the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles. In the novel, the main character, Gene, reflects on his responsibility for the death of his best friend, Phineas or Finny. After reading Gene's account of the events leading up to Finny's death, the reader can observe that there are three people who are all partially to blame for Finny's death. Gene, a classmate named Brinker, and Phineas all had something to do with the accident, but who was most responsible? Gene is probably most obviously responsible for part of Phineas' death. Gene clearly feels guilty, which is why he returns to the tree fifteen years after the fact, for some sort of closure. As Gene and Finny were about to jump together from a tree branch into the river, Gene shook the branch causing Phineas to unexpectedly fall into the river and injure his leg. Later, when Phineas re-injured his leg and was undergoing a routine operation on it, he died. The doctor said this was probably because some marrow had entered his bloodstream and caused his heart to stop. But if Finny had never fallen he wouldn't have been on that operating table. Therefore, indirectly, an action of the genes ultimately led to Finny's death. But was this action done consciously? The author does not specify it. “My knees were bent and I jerked my limb” (Knowles p.52) Gene says in his account of the accident. “I jounce” is an active verb but “were bent” is passive, meaning that an unknown force bent Gene's knees and consequently jerked the limb. Since this action was not totally performed by Gene, he is therefore not totally responsible for the fall or the events that occurred as a result of it. Brinker, Gene and Finny's classmate, was responsible for the circumstances that led to Phineas' second fall. Brinker suspected that Gene was responsible for Finny's first downfall and chastised him a bit for not joining the army with him when he wanted to. It was Brinker who called the trial in which Gene was prosecuted for purposely causing Finny to fall from the tree. But even if Gene had been responsible for Finny's first fall, there was no need to drag him out of bed in the middle of the night and subject him to such emotional turmoil when he was still physically vulnerable from the accident. If Brinker hadn't organized the trial, Finny would never have rushed out in such a distraught manner, causing him to fall and injure himself again. The doctor wasn't sure why Phineas died. “In the middle of the surgery his heart stopped. I can't explain it.”(Knowles p.185) He said. The doctor later speculated that Phineas probably died when the marrow entered his bloodstream and blocked his heart, but Gene meant the world to Finny. The idea that Brinker introduced to Phineas that his best friend would betray him hurt him badly and perhaps even made him lose the will to live. The actions of)