A Separate Peace Vs. A Dead Poet's Society

The fictional novel, A Separate Peace was written by John Knowles describes the life at Devon School during WWII. The novel follows two young boys, Gene and Phineas, as they face hardships and struggles throughout their life at Devon during the war. The war dominated life at Devon by creating tough decisions, causing students to act upon a life altering decision, and essentially create a war among each other.

A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, is a seemingly simple yet heartbreaking story that gives the reader an inside look and analysis of the reality of human nature. Set permanently in the main character Gene’s point of view, the audience is first taken to the present of a reflective and now wise man (Gene) and then plunged into his past back in 1942 to relive the harsh lessons that youth brought him. Along with vivid imagery of tranquil days past, a view into the social construct of a boy’s private school, Devon, and the looming presence of World War 2 on the horizon, there is also a significant power struggle that the reader can observe almost instantly. Conquering the need to be supreme in the situations of the war, high school, social interactions, and even simple moments that

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.

In the fiction novel, “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, there are plenty of characteristics exposed from the setting about the character Finny. How the setting of the novel helps reveal the character Finny is by the way he reacts towards his education, sports, and friends. He and a friend, Gene, go back fifth-teen years as if they were still at Devon High School, which is a boarding school for boys only.

“I find that the very things that I get criticized for, which is usually being different and just doing my own thing and just being original, is the very thing that’s making me successful.” Country singer Shania Twain explains that the things she does in her daily life, making her different from everyone else, actually makes her unique, despite the fact that it goes against social norms. A non-conformist person is someone who goes against societal norms because they are an individual who will do what they prefer to do, regardless of what others may think. In the novel The Outsider, Meursault is indifferent and passive to a

Many people think that it is easy to let go of the past, to move on, to let it all go, apologize to those you hurt, and forgive the people who have hurt you. But in reality, others would agree that it is definitely easier said than actually done. The book, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, is about a boy, Gene Forrester, who is attending an all boy boarding school in New England during the beginning of World War 2. He battles to find his inner self while also battling with the hardships of having a best friend, Finny, who everyone adores and who is good at everything he does. This book is chalked full of events, dramatic as well as calm, between these two boys that happen during a particular summer. They not only find their inner selves and make a stronger bond, but they stretch the limits of their relationship and they lose the innocence of their world. Coming of age is a necessary, but often challenging stage of life which involves seeing oneself and the world as they truly are. Coming of age is the main theme of this book because the boys need to be able to grow and mature into the young adults that they need to become.

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

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.

Joseph Campbell’s treatise on the 12 stages of the making of a hero, introduced in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, formulates his classic archetype of the monomyth in describing the journey and transformation that a character must endure to emerge in triumphant fulfillment of an odyssey or quest. These journeys are deftly manifested in two works of different mediums, John Knowles’ A Separate Peace and Dead Poets’ Society, a film by Peter Weir (hereafter referred to as ASP and DPS, respectively). Both these works, though offered in different formats, closely follow Campbell’s template for the hero’s transformation. Using the universal themes of coming of age, the fall from innocence and ultimately a measure of redemption, these two tales

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that intimidation is suicide…” (Emerson 370). A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, takes place at Devon, a preparatory school in New Hampshire, during the 1940’s. Gene Forrester is a student at Devon and drives much of the story’s plot through his intimidation of his best friend Finny. A Separate Peace not only shows how Gene’s envy and intimidation of Finny affected him and his friendship with Finny, but it also shows Gene’s failure in achieving true peace.

John Knowles’ “A Separate Peace” takes place at a boarding school during World War II. Best friends Gene and Finny have been inseparable during their time at the Devon School. This is until reality hits Gene, and he slowly starts to realize that he is inferior to his best friend. Through the unbalanced friendship between two teenagers in “A Separate Peace,” Knowles illustrates that a loss of identity may be present in a relationship if there is an unequal amount of power.

Friendship is one of the most important relationships that people form in all of their lives. Children build bonds when they are young and use those skills to continue fulfilling friendships for the rest of their lives. Throughout A Separate Peace, John Knowles displays the good things about close friendships but also the hardships that often occur. Gene and Finny are two boys that attend Devon school. Which is a school that closely reflects the one that Knowles attended while he was growing up. Both Gene and Finny emotionally grow despite their opposite personalities, and they go through several situations that force them to consider the value of their friendship. Through their time at the school, Knowles reveals Gene’s and Finny’s

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. At a glance, Finny and Gene’s relationship appears to be a story of tragedy as Gene must forever carry the loss of his very best friend, but as the novel progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Gene and Finny’s relationship before Finny’s accident was far from being black-and-white. Diving deeper into the text, Gene reveals his true feelings about Finny that fluctuate from Finny being an object of obsession to being a source of resentment. As the story is told from Gene’s point of view, the reader is submerged into the realm of Gene’s odd fascinations with Finny and the manifestations of his feelings of hatred and idolization as he acts out in odd ways, such as mimicking Finny’s facial expressions and clothing and developing conspiracy theories in which Finny is planning Gene’s academic downfall. Gradually, the picture painted of the teenage Gene Forrester of A Separate Peace becomes more and more distorted as Gene’s sanity is called into question. His

A Separate Peace, which was written by John Knowles, has many themes. They are interconnected throughout the book. The most clearly portrayed theme is fear. It seems to be connected with the themes of friendship, jealousy, and war. As World War II was occurring, fear had taken over Gene's life through these various themes. When he visited Devon fifteen years after leaving the school, Gene claimed, "I had lived in fear while attending the school and I can now feel fear's echo" (Knowles 10). He felt like he had gained a separate peace after escaping from this fear.

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.