Dufay's Piece for Peace: an Ironic Battle Between Structure and Word

People are colliding into battles continuously around the globe. It's not always a physical brawl between two armed forces but it also occur mentally and emotionally. On page 139 of A Separate Peace, a quote was mentioned by Gene, "...because it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and theirs special stupidities but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart..." This quote can relate to the novel, a personal experience and another literary work.

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.

The theme “rite of passage” was used in the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. This moving from innocence to adulthood was contained within three sets of interconnected symbols: summer and winter, the Devon and Naguamsett Rivers, and peace and war. These symbols served as a backdrop upon which the novel was developed. The loss if Gene Forrester’s innocence was examined through these motifs.

A “biblical guide to resolving personal conflict”, this, in a nutshell is what “The Peace Maker” is all about. In this critical book review I will be taking topics from the book and giving the reader my personal views on how I either reacted or related to the topics covered. My goal for this paper is to give the reader a non-biased opinion of “The Peace Maker”, which was published by Baker Books in June of 2004.

The historical allusion of the novel called A Separate Peace is when Finny compared Gene with General MacArthur. General MacArthur was a Five Star General and a Chief of Staff of the US Army during the World War II. Through his hard work, he managed to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor and be known as a very dedicated leader. Finny compares Gene with General MacArthur, because he looked like there was something important and very serious Gene wanted to tell Finny. However, at the end, they were interrupted and Gene never got the chance to tell the truth to Finny that he jounced the limb on purpose.

The marble staircase represents Gene's hatred towards Finny, and when he returns to Devon and encounters the stairs again, he is faced with his past hatred of his old friend. Moreover, the hardness of the marble contributed to breaking Finny's leg once more, which represents how much he hated Finny. He never realized the impact of his hatred and that it was what would directly led to Finny's death.

In chapter 11 of A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, Gene is back from Leper’s and wants to see Finny. Gene sees that Finny is in a snowball fight and Gene joins in when Finny hits him with a snowball. Later that night Brinker asks about Leper, Gene decided to tell both Finny and Gene that Leper has gone crazy. Finny admits that there really is war going on if Leper is so affected by it that he has gone crazy. At 10:05 pm that night Brinker and some others want to take Finny and Gene somewhere. They are both confused since it is after hours. Brinker takes them to the Assembly Room where he has taken it upon himself to investigate what really happened in that tree the day of Finny’s accident. Finny and Gene do not want to be in this situation

Chapter four starts with the gray dawn and closes with a gray dusk. Also, it begins with Gene describing Finny coming to life as Lazarus and ends with the tragic fall that destroys his life. Finny wakes that morning with characteristic action, proposing a quick swim. But of couse Gene declines because he is thinking about his limits and rules. When he looked at the sun, he knew it was about 6:30, and all he could do was worry about his trigonometry test that would be at 10:00. For Gene, the meaning of the morning emerges not from the beauty of the dawn the beautiful beach, but from his worries and disappointments. Finny has lost their money, and they must now bicycle back to Devon without breakfast and arrive just in time for Gene to fail his

Expectations: Work must be typed, 12 point font, double-spaced. Label each section appropriately with each number. Please check your work for complete sentences and grammatical errors. The answer for each section should be about a half to full page.

There are many different themes that make up the novel a separate peace, but some that stand out are friendship, loyalty, and jealousy. some examples of those three themes are when finny broke the swimming record and told gene not to tell anyone, it shows loyalty because gene listened to finny and didn't tell anyone about him breaking the record and it also shows friendship, it hints to jealousy though because throughout the story gene thinks that finny is trying to look like he is better than him at sports and it shows that gene is jealous.

War and Peace Who would have ever thought that war and peace could be related? In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, author uses irony, conflict, and tragedy to relate war and peace and how sometimes you have to go through war to get peace. It also shows that war can cause peace and peace can cause war. Gene and Finny both had to deal with things that were not always easy on them and sometimes it did not always cause a positive outcome. An example of irony would be Gene being Finny’s best friend but also being the reason for his injury when he had fallen out of the tree.

A Separate Peace, chapter three starts of with Gene talking about how Finny saved his life when he fell out of the tree. On the other hand, the only reason Gene was in that tree to begin with was because of Finny, “I didn’t need to feel any tremendous rush of gratitude towards Phineas”(Knowles 33). If it were not for Finny there is no way Gene would be anywhere near that tree. Also, if Gene was not so worried about pleasing Finny all of the time, he would not have jumped from the tree in the first place. After all of this happens and as the club now starts to grow, Finny decides he needs to start recruiting other members for the Suicide Society.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles about a boy named Gene, who returns to his boarding school after graduating to remember the memories from his time there. The book takes place during the early years of World War II, which greatly affects the lives of the main characters. Knowles utilizes many symbols with religious undertones throughout A Separate Peace including Finny’s fall from the tree, Gene’s fall into the Naguamsett, and Finny’s unexpected death.

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.