A Separate Peace Dealing with enemies has been a problem since the beginning of time. “I never killed anybody,” Gene had commented later in his life, “And I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform, I was on active duty all my time at Devon; I killed my enemy there.” In A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the value of dealing with enemies is shown by Gene, who was dealing with few human enemies, but his emotions created far greater…

Friendship in A Separate Peace A Separate Peace is a story about two youths, Gene and Phineas, growing up at a beautiful boys’ boarding school in New England. Set at the background of the World War II, the friendship between them grows as the peace in Devon School diminishes. Gene and Phineas are like two poles of a magnet, opposite yet bound together. Gene is academic, Finny is athletic; Gene is hard worker, Finny is not; Finny is the extroverted leader…

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…

A Separate Peace by John Knowles: Boys to Men 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…

peoples’ imaginations. Irrational assumptions, fears of the unknown, and the development of nonexistent threats allow the justification of these wars within the individuals. In A Separate Peace, wars such as these are seen between the characters and within the characters of Gene and Phineas. John Knowles’ A Separate Peace reveals Gene’s perceived war with Phineas and Phineas’ internal conflict with World War II to be intertwined with each other through Gene’s misunderstanding of Phineas and Phineas’…

A Separate Peace: by John Knowles During World War II in the struggle for peace among nations comes a smaller, but still significant struggle, in a prep school boy becoming a man and waking up to reality. In the book A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles, creates the image of two sixteen-year old boys struggling to keep what little sense of peace they know, even though there is a war going on all around them. Gene Forrester, the narrator of the story also struggles with an inner…

Devon had many incidents that occurred during the summer session and the regular school year. “Peace had deserted Devon” (Knowles pg.72). A tree, showing symbolism, has a big part in the story, A Separate Peace. The events happening during the summer session and regular school session, hinted foreshadowing, for later events to come. In Devon’s school, multifariously terminus students have a distinct story and oblique events tremble throughout the school. The students attending Devon have been through…

Works Sited Knowles, John. A Seperate Peace. Agincourt: Book Society of Canada, 1966. Print. King, Gilbert. "The Boy Who Became a World War II Veteran at 13 Years Old." Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2016. . Davis, Arthur T. "Being a Teenager During World War II at Ocean City, Maryland." Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum. Ocean City Museum Society, Inc., 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2016. . Avey, Helen. "A Teenager 's Life in the Second World War." WW2 People 's…

In A Separate Peace, a realistic fictional novel by John Knowles, World War 2 gradually encroaches upon and finally dominates life at Devon. The War is an ever present focus, if not focus then presence, that fell upon the students of Devon. That was the whole point wasn’t it? Train hard in a boarding school to prepare for war. The war impinged itself upon the school through the boys’ views, jargon, and also was brought to the school. World War II infringed Devon through the boys’ views. This can…

Crafted by author John Knowles in the late 1950’s, A Separate Peace is a heart-wrenching Bildungsroman narrated by a pensive Gene Forrester as he reflects upon trials and tribulations at his alma-mater, the Devon Boarding School. In an attempt to process the tragic loss of his best friend and coping with his own responsibility in his friend’s death, Gene returns to the campus to confront his progressive loss of Finny in both his plummet from the tree by the river to his tumble down the marble staircase…