A Seperate Peace, By John Knowles

Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher and public intellectual once said that, “everybody tends to merge his identity with other people… It’s called being mass man”. Mass man is what one would describe as a person lacking any individuality or uniqueness. This relates to John Knowles’s novel, A Separate Peace through the idea of Gene’s struggle with identity throughout the stories that he tells due to his own lack of individuality. In the novel, Gene Forrester is a student at the Devon School, a boarding school in New Hampshire. At Devon, Gene struggles with the concept of who he is, and who he wants to be. This struggle is greatly influenced by Gene’s best friend, Phineas, “Finny”. Gene looks up to Finny as both a friend and a role

Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affect him in many ways. Gene begins to lose his identity and start conforming to Finny. According to Knowles, “If I was head of the class and won that prize then we would be even…” (27). This quote explains how Gene follows finny by trying to be head of the class with him. Gene gets jealous of Finny being head of the class, so he tells him if he was head they would be even. When Finny introduce jumping off the tree to Gene at first he didn’t want to do it, but he wanted to be like Finny so he did it. In Knowles words, “what was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me? (5).

Over the summer session, Gene becomes close friends with Finny, an adventurous and amazingly trusting person. Gene, on the other hand, is a person who is more self-centered and doesn’t believe in Finny’s remarkable lack of hatred that makes him so unique. He believes that Finny is jealous of his academic prowess just like he is jealous of Finny’s superior athletic ability. Soon Gene realizes that his jealousy has blinded him to Finny’s authentic benevolence. Together they go on many adventures, and one day Finny and Gene decide to climb up a tree and jump into the river. Finny is balancing on a branch, ready to jump, when Gene accidently bounces the branch, causing Finny to fall. Finny broke his leg and was told that he would never be able to play sports again. Gene feels guilty about his role in the incident and tries to convince Finny that it was his fault. Finny laughs it off and doesn’t blame Gene for his role in the incident, showing more of his amiable personality. The summer session then ends, and both the boys go back to their homes. Gene visits Finny’s home, and he tells Finny that he bounced the branch on purpose. Finny doesn’t believe him and so Gene goes back to school. Brinker Hadley, a serious and responsible class politician, asks Gene if he wants to join the army with him. Gene agrees, but Finny’s return to the school causes his and Brinker’s idea to come to nothing.

In the first few chapters of A Separate Peace alone, Gene Forrester is John Knowles. In the first chapter, Gene is a grown man fifteen years in the future. He describes Devon School in the summer session in 1942. Devon School is rarely mentioned in the book. In A Separate Peace: The War Within the chronology states that in 1943, a year older than the book, he too went to a summer session at Exeter Academy (Bryant, xi).

Many people want to grow up quickly, they wish to be on their own as soon as possible, but the process of growing up can be as challenging as climbing Mount Everest. In A Separate Peace, Gene Forrester, a teenage boys struggling with self-doubt, is a prime example of this. Year after year, people are met with inner turmoil on who they are and what they stand for, moreover, the transition between adolescent to adulthood only increases complications with identity.

Acting out of jealousy, Gene resorts to physical aggression towards Finny, resulting in harm inflicted upon his friend. When Finny advises to jump off the tree into the river for entertainment, Gene doesn’t want to, but goes anyway. As they reach the limb from which they are supposed to jump, Gene experiences a moment of jealousy and resentment toward Finny's charisma and athletic

“You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone… I felt better. (Knowles 4). He tries to convince himself that Finny felt the same exact way. All along Gene is the only one having feelings like that. His conflict of envious and imitation towards himself affected his relationship as well. Since Gene has now acknowledged his feelings toward Finny, his actions will cause a lot of confusion. The level of jealousy and envy Gene has towards Finny increases, he starts to put the blame on Finny for incidents such as him almost falling. “I wouldn’t have been on that darn limb except for him… and so I lost my balance, if he hadn’t been there,” (Knowles 60). He does not want to see Finny become even more successful. He becomes so resentful of Phineas athletic skills he causes his friends injury to the leg. “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb,” (Knowles 60). Gene describes the events that took place right before the fall. Now he seeks to amend with his friend even after the act was intentionally done to harm Phineas. After the tragic accidents spiraling after one another, Gene finds his

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.

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

“Everything has to evolve or it perishes” (125). In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the setting takes place at an all boy’s boarding school in New England called Devon, during World War II. A Separate Peace is a disturbing and life-shattering parable of the dark side of a teenager. Gene Forester is an intellectual who mainly succeeds in academics and rule-abiding. Phineas is an excellent athlete, a dare-devil, a character who isn’t afraid to say what he thinks, and is admired by all. During the summer of 1942, both boys stay at the Devon school, and that summer changed everything for Gene and Finny, forever. A Separate Peace is set against the backdrop of World War II. While the war is going on, the young men of Devon School face their own psychological battles. Gene and Leper in particular create battles inside their own minds; they create division and enemies, and they deal with their difficulties in very different ways.

In his novel A Separate Peace, John Knowles demonstrates that, to achieve adulthood, one must lose innocence and acknowledge this loss.

Katie Bui Mr. Kenigsberg English 2A October 23rd, 2023 Finding Yourself There is a famous quote that says, “Sometimes when you lose your way, you find yourself” - Mandy Hale. To find oneself means learning about yourself, changing the way you see the world, and accepting yourself. Learning about yourself is learning your values, what you believe in, and why you are the way you are; you need to reflect on everything and understand your emotions and behavior. In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene Forrester is a student at Devon private school during World War II.

“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.

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.

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