Innocence In John Knowles 'A Separate Peace'

Visiting his school, Devon, fifteen years later, Gene realizes that during the time he was studying there fear surrounded them, and he had not noticed. However, with his return Gene realizes that the fear “had surrounded and filled those days” and now when revisiting he was “unfamiliar with the absence of fear”, with leaving Devon he escapes feeling of fear (Knowles 10). He did not fear those days that he spent there and looks at them as lessons that help him grow. No longer feeling the hatred he had once felt, Gene gains peace from within him, and as he loses his hatred he is able to accept the real, adult, world. With the hatred gone, Gene also loses the fury he had at people and at life. Getting rid of those feelings, that were once so normal to Gene, he begins to possess peace within himself, allowing him to come of

Only gradually does he admit to the existence of war, in which Gene is unhesitant to follow in pursuit. This is because Gene regards Finny as a virtuous boy whom he has faith in and wishes to resemble. Fifteen years after the events of the war and the narrator still lives in the atmosphere which his deceased friend created for him. It is without question that Finny was the main contributor in altering the way Gene used to perceive conflicts in his life, and having such a profound influence on Gene, how he perceives them even 15 years later.

depths, emotions to the characters, plot and theme in the book. The devices are used

In the middle of the novel, Gene starts to understand events as time passes. One particular event is when Gene visits Leper. Gene learns that, Leper has turned crazy. “I didn’t care what I said to him now; it was I I was worried about. For if Leper was a psycho it was the army that had done it to him, and I and all of us were on the brink of the army.”(144) Gene realizes that it wasn’t he who turned Leper crazy, but it was the army, and him and Brinker were about to enlist. Gene understands and realizes the horrors that are really out there in the universe. It transforms Gene by letting Gene understand the horrors and the reality of things that are happening.

Gene contemplates his and Finny’s friendship many times in the book, but despite what Gene may have thought, Finny was a good friend to him. He always took Gene’s feelings into account, and through all that happened he had faith in Gene. But Gene never knew this,

The reason this change in the novelhappens is because Finny has made it a point to prove to Gene that the war was not real. Thereader can infer from this behavior that Finny only wanted to keep Gene around him so he wouldnot be lonely. However as the story continues the reader figures out that this inference was truealong with another. This other hidden truth was that Finny was only pushing the war awaybecause he was not able to be apart of the war. After the reader finds this out the minds shit asthey find out that the last bit of innocence thatFinny had was that him and Gene could not be friends if he had enlisted.The reader notices that up until the point that Finny broke his leg that he was this perfectimage in people's eyes. However when he does break his leg and walks around the school incrutches those people have a different view on him. This change in perspective notifies thereader in that loss of innocence in Finny and at

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

Gene is constantly neglecting to confront his guilt, and this in turn causes it to come back to haunt him in the most undesirable way. Gene describes the passage into the room, “The lock turned, we went in, entering the doubtful

Near the end of the novel, Brinker organizes a mock trial in which Gene is accused of causing Finny’s fall. Throughout the trial, Finny adamantly denies Gene’s involvement, claiming Gene was not even on the tree when he fell. However, the arrival of Leper, a fellow classmate, causes him to doubt himself. Leper is an innocent schoolboy who joins the military but deserts after going insane. He returns to Devon Academy, where he is invited by Brinker to shed light upon the incident, which he does by revealing Gene’s involvement in Finny’s fall. Finny, unable to handle the truth, emotionally retreats from the room as he shouts “You get the rest of the facts Brinker….you collect every f---ing fact there is in the world!” (Knowles 177). Finny reacts emotionally to the truth because accepting it would mean accepting his closest companion is no longer to be trusted. This is particularly scarring for Finny because after his theory about the war is shattered, he becomes dependent on Gene’s loyalty and candor: “Christ, I’ve got to believe you, at least. I know you better than anybody” (Knowles 163). In both cases, Finny’s innocent beliefs are shattered by Leper, who illuminates the reality of the world’s evils and consequently destroys Finny’s blissful ignorance. Leper symbolizes the unadulterated truth; he is unencumbered

“But I no longer needed this vivid false identity . . . I felt, a sense of my own real authority and worth, I had many new experiences and I was growing up “(156). Gene’s self-identity battle ends and he finds his real self. Gene’s developing maturity is also shown when he tells the truth about Leper. His growing resentment against having to mislead people helps Gene become a better person. When Brinker asks about Leper, Gene wants to lie and tell him he is fine but his resentment is stronger than him. Instead Gene comes out and tells the truth that Leper has gone crazy. By pushing Finny out of the tree, crippling him for life and watching him die; Gene kills a part of his own character, his essential purity. Throughout the whole novel Gene strives to be Finny, but by the end he forms a character of his own. Gene looks into his own heart and realizes the evil. “. . . it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart” (201). He grasps that the creation of personal problems creates wars. Gene comes to acknowledge Finny’s uniqueness and his idealism and greatly admires his view of the world. He allows Finny’s influence to change him and eliminates the self-ignorance. At Finny’s funeral Gene feels that he buries a part of himself, his innocence. “I could not escape a feeling

Gene and Finny are faced with many situations where either good or evil will take over their decision. When Finny falls of the tree Gene “took a step toward him, and then [his] knees bent and [he] jounced the limb” (Knowles 60). Gene purposefully makes Finny fall even if neither of them realizes or accepts it at first. When Gene makes the decision to cause Finny to fall, he lets evil win. He lets it take him over to benefit himself in the long run. On the other side of it, when Gene tries to tell Finny that he did intentionally hurt him he said “of course you didn’t do it. You damn fool. Sit down, you damn fool” (Knowles 70). Finny does not want to accept the fact that his friend would do such a thing to him. He pushes out the evil that could have let him lash out at his friend and let the good in him refuse to believe it. Lastly, when Gene was fighting with Quackenbush all of a sudden Gene “hit him hard across the face” (Knowles 790). Gene lets the evil take over him and hit Quackenbush in the

Looking at these two components, it is clear that these two paragraphs relate to the theme of denial. This idea is perfect because these two naturally go under this concept. On one hand, Gene is going through an internal war throughout the whole book. He is at constant denial with himself because he cannot find a side to go onto. His love and kindness for Finny is indefinite, as he could not cry at Finny’s funeral because it “was [his] own

144). This page involves Gene’s slightly violent outburst while he was getting defensive and tried to hide what he did when, in the end, he just ends up looking more guilty than before. The more he lets his guilt eat at hip the more defensive he gets. This allows him to possibly hurt friends who may rightfully accuse him of his wrongs. Once the guilt eats him up enough, that’s when everything goes downhill and that is when Finny takes a hard fall. “Then these seperate sounds collided into the general tumult of his body falling down the white marble staircase.” (pg. 177). Before Finny falls down the white marble staircase, causing him to die soon after, Finny found out that gene was the one who made him fall out of the tree, which cause him to be angry while going down the stair when he suddenly falls. If the story had happened in a slightly different way or if Gene were not to have let his guilt take the better of him, Finny could still be alive. Although Gene’s guilt “protected” Finny from the truth for a short time, the consequences were much unimaginably worse. If Gene has persisted with the truth long enough so that Finny would finally believe him, Finny, being Finny, would some day forgive him and Gene would have lost

First, Gene admits to being guilty of shaking a tree in order to injure Finny when he visits him at his home, making Finny livid, and temporarily tearing them apart. Gene is envious of Finny’s athletic ability and bravery. One way Finny shows his bravery is by jumping off a tree for fun. Gene is greatly threatened by the bravery, so he decides to strip it from Finny by shaking the tree one day, making him fall and suffer an injury. Consequently, he instantly regrets his decision, but he realizes that the damage is done. Remorsefully, he wants to apologize for his terrible choice, but when he tries to talk about the situation and confess, Finny is in denial and starts to get angry. Finny’s denial is evident when he says “‘I don’t know anything. Go away. I’m tired and you make me sick. Go away’” (Knowles 70). This dialogue shows how Finny did not believe that Gene caused the incident even after the confession. This is because he believes that Gene would not do such an action. The confession tears Finny apart to the point that he lashes out at Gene and wants him to leave his house. If Gene did not commit the notorious action, Finny would not have to feel the pain physically from the injury, and mentally from the idea that Gene would hurt him, and the boys could have a stronger friendship.

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.