Essay on Peace- George Herbert

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.

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.

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.

Through the entire book Being Peace includes illustrations from Mayumi Oda. According to the editor’s preface they talked about how Mayumi Oda met Thich Nhat Hanh at a place called Green Gulch. After doing a small research of the location on Green Gulch it is a Zen center in San Francisco. So the illustrator Mayumi Oda would have most likely taken a retreat there to meet Thich Nhat Hanh. When one notices the illustrations in the book they are very simplistic and reflect on chapter of the book Thich Nhat Hanh is talking about. For example the illustration for chapter four has a small tree that is being watered and a shovel on the ground beside it. This let us know before reading the chapter that it will have something to do with growing. Then

Life can be viewed as a battle field, a constant fight between good and evil. In Leif Enger's Peace Like a River, this scenario was well depicted. In the novel, there was a constant fight taking place between the good and evil characters, and though based around family, love, and brotherhood, the novel mainly focused on the conflict between these characters.

Consequences come from choices individuals make, such as waking up in the morning at a specific time in order to avoid traffic. However, even if the decisions are not made by the individual, they still have to suffer the consequences of those decisions made by others. Take, for instance, the choice that someone makes to drink and drive while under the influence. If that person kills someone, then his decision impacts the lives of everyone involved and not just himself. A theme in Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger, is that people must accept the consequences of their actions because it influences the direction they go in life. This theme is developed through the character of Jeremiah, the conflict between Davy and the law, and the symbolism

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conclusion that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide” (Emerson 370). John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, perfectly shows the results of envy and imitation at a boys’ preparatory school, Devon, in 1943. The novel’s narrator and protagonist, Gene Forester, tells his story as a flashback of his days at the Devon School. He is first known for his academic skills and following of the rules, but later allows his insecurities and jealously drive him to make transgressions that will follow him for the rest of his life. A Separate Peace perfectly shows the results of how envy and imitation affect Gene, his relationship with Finny, and Gene’s achievement of peace.

The phrase “Silence is a Form of Consent” means that if you don’t say anything to protest, then you are saying yes. In A Separate Peace, a young boy named Gene tries to kill, or at least seriously hurt, his best friend Finny because he thinks Finny is trying to pull him away from studying to make himself look better. He justifies this with the fact that he is always out with Finny doing things he doesn’t want to do when he should be working on his homework. However, he never says no to any of these things, and Finny believes that he just enjoys doing these things because he never hears otherwise. This is a very key element in the story, and is the source of most of Gene’s frustrations.

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.

"Your surroundings may change but your essence and your personality pretty much stay the same" (Dewan). The setting of the novel A Separate Peace is at an all boys school located in New Hampshire. The characters and plot are finely woven into the fabric of this institution. However, would events in this novel turn out differently if the story was set in a public high school, with a diverse environment? The characters and plot of A Separate Peace are not solely driven by their surroundings because the boys would still break the rules, Gene would have internal conflicts, and the war would affect the students.

The civil war ended and it was soon the beginning of many hardships. “The Problems of Peacemaking” discusses all of the problems with the Northerners and Southerners becoming peaceful after the war. President Abraham Lincoln did many things to try to get peace after the war. When he realized it wasn’t going to be easy, he decided that a “Reconstruction Plan” could maybe help them get peace. After the civil war the South didn’t have many things left because everything they had was destroyed almost completely. People living in the south wanted to regain it back but they soon realized it wasn’t that easy to do. The white southerners lost some land and their slaves but that was nothing compared to the black southerners. Black southerners lost everything when they left to get freedom, besides a little bit of clothing and a few possessions they took with them. Blacks and whites had completely different meanings of freedom. The whites wanted to control what they did without the government’s input, and the blacks wanted to get freedom from the whites. The whites wanted white supremacy which is, they wanted to be more superior. The blacks just wanted to be control and own things such as land. General William Sherman’s “Special Field Order No. 15” helped give 400,000 acres of land to 40,000 freed slaves. Other methods were produced to help slaves get land, one of the most famous was the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau gave slaves food, health care, clothing, and education. The whites of course, disagreed with the Bureau and would have disputes about it. The disputes were all settled by the Freedmen’s Bureau. General Howard created the “Circular 13” which helped lease 40 acre plots to slaves and hoped to later sell it to them. He also made the Southern Homestead Act that made 46 million acres for sell to slaves in many states. It was later repealed because people thought slaves were taking advantage of it. Republicans had say in what happened during the reconstruction. The conservatives and radicals disagreed on their views. The radicals were more harsh. All the conservatives said was that the south should just take what was happening and do nothing about it. The radicals wanted to take away some rights from a

The novel begins with old Gene remembering what happened at Devon fifteen years ago. Gene and Finny go to Devon School during WWII. Even though they are friends , they are very different. Finny is the top well-rounded athlete who can get talk his way out of anything, while Gene is the studious, shy kid. Finny comes off as a jerk and thinks he has to be good at everything. I do not quite understand Finny and Gene’s friendship. Finny creates a secret society and in order to be in it you must jump from a tree limb. I also believe that Finny and Gene are both afraid of denial, change in time passing. The way they see things and the way Gene presents himself isn’t reality. Also, Gene has trouble finding his inner peace throughout the novel.

Historical events can play an important role in a person's life.  In A Separate Peace, the whole atmosphere at the Devon School changed as World War II progressed.  The boys either eagerly awaited the draft, enlisted in the area of war they wanted, or did not want to go at all.  The students at the school created new activities for enjoyment since the customary past times could not be played due to a lack of materials.  When a friend "returns" from the war, the boys at Devon got a real sense of what the war was like.  The boys learned that going to war was not all fun and games like they had anticipated.  The influence World War II had on the characters in A

Pacifism is the belief that violence is not the way to resolve differences. They believe that war can be avoided and that there are better and longer lasting solutions to disputes.