A Separate Peace By John Knowles

The boys at the Devon school, in the novel A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, are World War II influenced by making them mature and grow up more quickly than they would have had there not been a war. The war makes some boys stronger and more ready for whatever life would bring, while in others it disables them to the point that they cannot handle the demands of life. This novel shows a “coming-of age” story, especially with three boys. Gene starts out as a naïve and sensitive person but matures into a person more knowledgeable and capable of handling the challenges of life through his crisis experiences with of course, Phineas, Leper and, Brinker.

As people grow older, the more we are inclined to learn; lessons of the world, personal identities, and more, but with these come the loss of innocence. In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, the loss of innocence due to knowledge becomes evident; through the experiences of Gene, Leper, and Finny.

War is a destructive force whose nature is to destroy all things and change lives forever. It is a whirlpool that sucks everything in and is fueled by hatred and violence. Whether one is directly involved in the battlefield or waiting to see the outcome, war has the capacity to affect all people. It can harden one beyond their years and force them to grow, seeing conflicting sides of good and evil. A Separate Peace by John Knowles narrates the story of young boys growing up with World War II as the backdrop. The war impacts them dramatically and is constantly thought about as they are coming of the age since they will soon be enlisted. However, not only are they living during an era of war but are also struggling with the war inside of themselves as they search for the truth within. Knowles depicts the ability of war to affect teenage boys in Devon, an English preparatory school, and transform them from carefree boys to troubled young men in search of their own separate peace.

John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, reveals the many dangers and hardships of adolescence. The main characters, Gene, and Finny, spend their summer together at a boarding school called Devon. The two boys, do everything together, until Gene, the main character, develops a resentful hatred toward his friend Finny. Gene becomes extremely jealous and envious of Finny, which fuels this resentment, and eventually turns deadly. Knowles presents a look at the darker side of adolescence, showing jealousy’s disastrous effects. Gene’s envious thoughts and jealous nature, create an internal enemy, that he must fight. A liberal humanistic critique reveals that Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, has a self contained meaning, expresses the

Being “envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide”. John Knowles wrote A Separate Peace, based on the German term bildungsroman. Gene is smart, intelligent, and a really great person to be around. He has a great personality up until, he starts to emulate Finny. A Separate Peace demonstrates how Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him, their friendship, and Gene ends up finding peace.

John Knowles’ novel A Separate Peace is about a few boys at a boarding school in New Hampshire. The story is centered around the friendship of two boys, Gene and Finny, at a boarding school in New Hampshire. Although in the beginning of their friendship Gene did not trust Finny, by the time he dies Gene feels as if a part of him has died, showing that he still felt closely bonded to him after all they had been through.

In A Separate Peace, John Knowles carries the theme of the inevitable loss of innocence throughout the entire novel. Several characters in the novel sustain both positive and negative changes, resulting from the change of the peaceful summer sessions at Devon to the reality of World War II. While some characters embrace their development through their loss of innocence, others are at war with themselves trying to preserve that innocence.

In the novel, “A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles, takes place in New England, during World War II. Gene, remembers his experiences at Devon school 15 years ago, when he was 16 years old, to the time when he was a student with his best friend Phineas (Finny). who he both had mixed feelings for of jealousy and admiration. Both Gene and Finny have advantages of their own mainly being, academics and athleticism. But as the story continues as each of their aspects starts to have negative effect and influences upon one another; Gene starts to get jealous and worried that he is not “better” than his best friend based on his best aspects. This causes problems in their friendship, as their trust, and relationship as a whole slowly falls apart. One theme this story suggest is how loyalty and jealousy in close relationships may blind you from the truth

In the novel, “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, the seasons develop actions and characters in the story. The story takes place at an all-boys boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II based off of the author’s previous experiences at a boarding school. The two main characters, Finny and Gene, experience character development alongside different seasons. In written works, seasons are commonly used to symbolically represent a change in the character’s personalities. The nature or setting of the story is used to specifically evolve Finny and Gene in seasons such as the summer, autumn, and winter. Each season change also generates an entirely different mood.

Time magazine, an article about A Separate Peace, states that “. . . one of the things the novelist seems to be saying is that the enemy Gene killed, and loved, is the one every man must kill: his own youth, the innocence that burns to hotly to be endured.” The Times journalist communicates a significant theme of innocence that John Knowles continues to bring up throughout the novel. When the Times journalists write about “killing youth,” they are conveying the idea of how Gene removes himself from innocence and comes of age. Innocence may not last forever and as Gene continues to come of age he must allow his youth to escape from his character.

The novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a story of a man that returns to his high school after 15 years. Knowles starts the chapter by introducing the narrator, Gene, and the location, the Devon School. Next, he brings in the setting by describing the weather and month as a “ wet, self-pitying November day.” Gene contrasts how he sees the school when he goes back as to when he was a student there. Gene also talks about his best friend Finny and he tells about his personality being outgoing and convincing. The author's purpose of writing this story is to flashback on some of the most important years of his life.

A Separate Peace is a coming-of-age novel written by John Knowles in 1959. Set against the background of World War II, A Separate Peace explores patriotism, morality and loss of innocence through its narrator, Gene Forrester. The novel also focuses on another main character, Phineas (also known as Finny). Gene and Finny, in spite of being complete opposites in personality, are close friends at Devon, an old prep school. Gene's quiet, withdrawn, and academic individuality counterparts Finny's loud, carefree, and athletic behavior. Both Phineas and Gene are shown as allegorical and symbolical characters throughout the narrative in A Separate Peace. "It made Finny seem too unusual for—not friendship, but too unusual for rivalry. And there were few relationships among us at Devon not based on rivalry." (Chapter 3)

John Knowles’s novel A Separate Peace follows a group of private school students through a turning point in their lives. After previously being secluded from the chaos around the world, their sudden involvement in Finny’s injury and the war effort force them to adopt different perspectives. The more they learn from these new viewpoints, the more they mature and understand the world as it really is. A Separate Peace shows that, in order to grow as a person, it is necessary to view life from different perspectives.

In A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles tells a story of a group of teenagers attending Devon school. He emphasizes the importance of the group finding themselves before they are drafted into the Second World War. The events in this novel serve to illustrate the complexity of self-identity during a time of uncertainty. Some believe that people during a time of war are more certain of themselves individually.

Some friendships last forever and others do not but in the novel, A Separate Peace (1959) by John Knowles, displays a different kind of friendship. The reader throughout this novel was very entertained. This novel takes place at the Devon Preparatory School in the years of 1942-1943.