Definition Essay: Can Peace Make A Difference?

Betrayal, one of the most horrible things you could do to anyone your family, a friend anyone. To me it’s one of my all time most hated things a person could do and it’s almost unforgivable. In this book A Separate Peace by John Knowles two boys Phineas and Gene who are best friends at a boarding school in New Hampshire experience some of the worst kinds of Betrayal you could think of. Gene commits a very bad betrayal when he jousts the tree limb they are both standing on ending up with Finny falling and badly breaking his leg. This was no accident because Gene can’t stand the guilt.

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 rivals than any human could ever posses.

As Carl Jung once stated, “Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious”. To reach a peaceful reconciliation, one must learn to embrace two distinct elements of their personality, the "Persona" and "Shadow." Likewise, in the bildungsroman, A Separate Peace, author John Knowles depicts the common rivalry between young adolescents, and how they struggle to accept their identity and the relationship between their unconscious self. Gene, a Devon High student, becomes best friends with Finny and grows jealous of his ostensibly flawless friend, causing him to make a life-changing decision. His struggles to reach an inner balance between his “Persona” and “Shadow” lead to the ultimate death of Finny. Gene’s transformation involves the changes of his mask and “Shadow”—from guilt and jealousy to pride and tolerance—which results in the later acceptance of the light and dark parts of himself, allowing him to truly reach adulthood and a state of peace.

According to the Collins dictionary peace is “If countries or groups involved in a war or violent conflict are discussing peace, they are talking to each other in order to try to end

War is Peace – If there was no war the citizens would not have peace, war is used as a way to control and regulate peace.

Peace is very complex. It could happen when your young, or when your older and more experienced. Peace can come from bright times or dark time, such as death. In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles Gene finds peace in a very odd way. He has a quite “separate peace” from everyone else. Staring off as one piece, braking off into a separate piece, and finally finding a separate peace, Gene discovers he is himself, and not Finny.

At the Devon School in New Hampshire, in 1942, during World War II, the main character, Gene, becomes closer with his adventurous roommate, Finny, whose elemental charisma distracted them from the reality outside of the school. Throughout the novel the realness of the war becomes present and the war’s continuation parallels the growth of Gene, from a young innocent boy, to a man. These changes happen to align with one another and that coordination represents the theme of a loss of innocence in the novel. Due to the contradictory interactions with the war and the pursuit of adulthood, Genes development as a person runs alongside the progression of the war. In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the relationship between the author’s use of war impacts the maturing of the main character Gene and further develops the theme of the loss of innocence.

The novel “A Separate Peace” can be interpreted in many ways as it highlights several interesting topics. I’ll be discussing my own personal interpretation of the book. The themes I’ll be covering are many common ones, coming-of-age, good and evil, and envy and hate.

Daily life is heavily affected by different forms of peace. External societal peace, is the peace that is not in an individual's control. For example, war, conflicts in relationships, and random acts of violence are

A Separate Peace took place at an all boys military school during WWII. Every young man who was eighteen or older was eligible to be drafted into the military and fight for their country. The boys in the novel were enrolled in a military school to prepare them if they got drafted. That way, the boys would know how to protect others and themselves, giving America a better chance to win the war. In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, WWII is used to represent loss of innocence and internal wars.

War is defined as a state of armed conflict within a nation or state or between nations or states. How can war be reduced to a mere conflict without explaining the vivid night terrors from the soldiers that must now live a life of psychological torment or the accumulating pressure placed on young adolescents to partake in the bloody event of the murder of human lives; furthermore, what does the definition of war imply about the societal views on the glorification of war? A Separate Peace prominently explores how war majorly affects not only the soldiers that are in the center of the war, but the civilians that live under the nation. The psychological toll that the younger generation faces is evidently shown through the causes and effects of the young men at a boys’ boarding school whose decisions are influenced by the war, such as Leper whose actions triggers an array of character development across several characters and reveals the philosophical significance of war. Leper’s role in A Separate

In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the protagonist, Gene Forrester “battled” within himself to find “a separate peace” and in this process directed his emotions at Phineas, his roommate. Forrester and Phineas formed the illusion of a great companionship, but there was a “silent rivalry” between them in Forrester’s mind. Self deceptions in Forrester led him to believe that Phineas was “out to get him” (Forrester). Subconsciously Forrester jounced the limb of the tree and forced Phineas to fall and break his leg. Phineas found out the truth of his “accident” with the help of Leper Lepellier and Brinker Hadley, who were friends that attended Devon High School. Gene Forrester’s conflict between his

Peace is walking to school alone, having a responsible government and having a day to remember the ones that fought for our country. To begin, peace is like walking to school because not everyone one has a proper or any education. I know in some places like South Africa only 30% of kids have a proper education, 70% don’t have any or very bad education system. Moreover, in Canada we have a good government and we live in a democracy were we get the chance to vote/elect a voice that could be heard. I belive in some countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and more were they don’t have a proper government, wich leads them to protests and they just get put in jail, where as the Politian’s that they elect don’t even care and

My topic of World Peace began to develop as I felt the need to address the idea of World Peace. In addition, I selected this topic to confirm that the idea was impossible to achieve. Through a long period of research, I began to learn about World Peace. As I was studying the topic, I was lead to many websites and articles to support my claim, a possible way to achieve World peace was nonchalant. Scholarly articles, written news stories, and credible websites assisted me in learning more about the possible conflicts that can prevent this idea from becoming true. I learned how many of the

It works to create a positive peace through a transformation of conflict. In 1992, United Nations secretary General Boutros-Ghali released his report titled An Agenda for Peace. This document proposed peace building as “Action to identify and solidify peace in order to avoid relapse into conflict,” (Boutros-Ghali 11). While two sides are still in conflict, there is not a chance for communication between sides. Until violent conflict ceases, the two parties will continue to dehumanize one another and decrease the ability to understand one another. However, conflicts cannot always resolve themselves and outside intervention is sometimes needed to avoid a cycle of revenge, which can be a result. “The problem is a well-known bias in human perception, whereby we inflate the value of the wrongs we suffer, and minimize the value of those we ourselves inflict.” (Santa-Barbara 179). Luckily, there are nations such as Canada, with politicians like Lloyd Axworthy, who created the Canadian peace building initiative in 1996. “The initiative suggested a concern for the multidimensional and integrated causes of civil war and thus acknowledged the need to address the economic, social, and political aspects of reconstruction and reconciliation” (Keating 171).