What Is The Theme Of A Separate Peace Coming Of Age

When Gene visits Leper at his home in Vermont, he discovers Leper’s mental instability and fears the same will happen to him in the future when he enlists in the army. Gene states, “I didn’t care what I said to him now; it was myself I was worried about. For if Leper was psycho it was the army which had done it to him, and I and all of us were on the brink of the army” (Knowles 135). Gene is now coming to the realization that war can have negative effects on those involved and is beginning to fear the war. Previously, just as the other boys, he has been shielded from the ugly truths of war by attending Devon, alien to the idea of the violence that it contains. Now, he has achieved a new understanding and has now created an informed opinion on war. This serves as a turning point for Gene because he is losing his innocence and discovering more about the war beyond the walls of

In this passage, Gene speaks as his older self and reflects on the meaning of his

Gene becomes more disciplined and athletically inclined. He is undertaking circumstances that he knows will never come true, the 1944 Olympics, yet making the best of them to please his best friend. Gene is learning to do things although he does not want to do and that have no purpose. This is a difficult task for an immature child; however, through Gene's ability to train for the inexistent Olympics, shows that he is growing up. He looks at his training as if he were preparing for the war. Accepting that he must go to war is also another sign of maturity brought on by the training for the Olympics with Finny. Through his preparation for the Olympics, Gene's coming of age becomes more and more evident.

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.

A Separate Peace is a World War II setting book written by the author, John Knowles. A Separate Peace is an example of a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age  novel. One of the main characters, Gene Forrester, is a perfect example of someone who is coming-of-age. As the  novel progresses, Gene  is transformed and impacted by many different experiences during his time at Devon High School.  In the book, A Separate Peace, Gene  becomes mature from his experiences from Finny’s death and Training for the Olympics; He also loses his innocence, and this teaches the reader about growing up and the idea of losing innocence.

I think the main struggles he faces throughout the novel are jealously and internal guilt. Throughout the book, Gene struggles with his envy towards his best friend Finny. Even after Phineas breaks his leg, Gene is jealous of the way Finny still manages to have motivation and how Finny pretends that nothing even happened. Although Gene feels resentment for the duration of the novel, after causing Finny’s fall off the tree, he starts to feel major guilt inside of him. Even though Finny does not know that Gene jounced the tree for most of the book, I think that made Gene feel even more guilty. In the end, Gene ends up not only losing his struggle, but also losing his best friend. Gene realizes that all along, he thought Finny was the enemy, but if he had acted like Finny, like he always compared himself to be, he would have realized that the antagonists are maybe not always the enemy after all. So after Finny passed, Gene never killed anyone during World War II, and never saw anyone as an enemy, just as Finny would have

When Leper escapes from the military and goes home, the difference in him is almost opposite to his naturalistic and introverted ways during the Summer Session. When Leper and Gene got into an altercation, Leper was described as having a “blind confusion in his eyes again, a wild slyness around his mouth...Laughing and crying he lay with his head on the floor and his knees up (Knowles 213). Leper didn’t even have to speak in this example to show the damage being in the war has caused on him and how it has made him into an aggressive person. When Gene described Gene this way, it shows a very dark light, contrasting with the first impression we got of Leper in the first half of the novel. The most evident example of the loss of innocence in all of the novel is Leper and the way he talks about himself after coming home from the war and he brings up his disturbing hallucinations again. In the book, Leper says, talking about the images, “That’s what made me psycho… I don’t know. I guess they must be right. I guess I am psycho… I must be.” (Knowles 218) At this point, Knowles completely made a 180 on Leper, and almost created him in a new form; a new darker, and almost evil-sounding person. Leper was convinced that his hallucination were his fault, and because of that he was crazy. This is a loss of innocence for him because he isn’t the same person, he doesn’t oppose the war,

To start off, all the boys show the theme coming of age in their own personal ways. Gene shows this theme because he has more inner battles and struggles that he has to overcome than any other character. For example, Gene shows this when he along with others discuss enlisting. Gene starts contemplating and thinking of everything he has to lose. He also

“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

One of the most major conflicts of the book is Gene wishing he could be like his best friend Finny and being dangerously jealous of him. Genes jealousy got the best of him when he decided to step on a branch on purpose, which leads to Finny falling and breaking his leg. Sadly, Finny breaks his leg again and dies from bone marrow passing into the bloodstream during surgery and it was caused by the first break of his leg that Gene caused. Gene learns from this that he should not compare himself to others, because it is simply not fair. There is growth shown in Gene when he learns this and he knows that if he let it happen again it could have tragic consequences. It took losing a best friend for Gene to know that he

In the novel, “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, the seasons develop actions and characters in the story. The story takes place at an all-boys boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II based off of the author’s previous experiences at a boarding school. The two main characters, Finny and Gene, experience character development alongside different seasons. In written works, seasons are commonly used to symbolically represent a change in the character’s personalities. The nature or setting of the story is used to specifically evolve Finny and Gene in seasons such as the summer, autumn, and winter. Each season change also generates an entirely different mood.

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.

Finny and Gene's different strengths and weaknesses In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene and Finny are very different individuals, but together are great friends. They help each others with their weaknesses and when put together their strengths make them a great team. Despite what differences they do have, Gene and Finny are very close friends. Gene is a very intelligent person but throughout the book he is plagued by his jealousy.

The novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles is an edge of the seat read and an American Classic. It takes place during World War II, which in itself can be enticing. Gene and Phineas create this emotional bond that cannot be broken but only strengthened. This novel teaches the world of what a reality check can truly be when in fact you don’t know what is truly around the next corner. Knowles creates the ultimate spine tingling book that will keep you in between the covers.

The beginning of a friendship is the beginning of keenness, jealousy, and often times hatred. One may become naive in the course of friendship and never realize by the end that a friend may become an enemy. In A Separate Peace by John Knowles this is just the case, a friendship that consists of two complete polar opposites, Gene and Finny, one athletic the other a brainiac. Gene and Finny go to Devon School and through thick and thin these two have stuck together, however during the summer into junior year their relationship hits some turbulence. John Knowles embodies the reality of war within the relationship of Gene and Finny, as well as, how the fear of war, surroundings of war, and violence can affect several relationships.