Throughout time, famous authors have written even more famous books based on their own experiences. Nearly any book can be traced to an event in the author’s life. Whether they do it intentionally or not, these book are basically unofficial autobiographies. While they should not be taken as fact, a reader can come to understand the life of the author, and better understand their work. One famous author, C.S. Lewis, created a beautiful allegory in “The Chronicles of Narnia.” C.S. Lewis was a Christian and Aslan, the main character in the books, was a savior to the world. He modeled Aslan after Jesus Christ. Other famous authors using this technique include J.R.R. Tolkien and John Knowles with his book A Separate Peace.
John Knowles was born in Fairmont, West Virginia in 1926. Fairmont was a small mining town where Knowles attended public schools. His father, James M. Knowles, was the vice president and purchasing agent of a coal company earned him a comfortable living. His mother, Mary Beatrice Shea Knowles, taught him how to read and write and instilled in him a love for learning. His parents decided he needed to go to a better than Oyster Bay High school, so at the age of fifteen, he left home for Phillips Exeter Academy. This academy was an elite prep school in New Hampshire. This new school was both socially and academically difficult. He pushed on and eventually enrolled into Yale to study English in 1944.
In 1947, Knowles graduated a year early due to his enrollment in the Anticipatory Program during the summer. This session was similar to Devon’s “Summer Session” which was meant to prepare boys for the military. Another similarity, was two rivers at Devon that actually exist at Phillips Exeter College. He joined the milita...
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...it. It is not a all true, but its is an unofficial autobiography.
Works Cited
"A Separate Peace Summary." Study Guides & Essay Editing. Grade Save, 16 Aug. 2000. Web. 02 May 2014. .
"C. S. Lewis." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Apr. 2014. Web. 01 May 2014. .
Mabe, Chauncey. "Knowles Now Thirty Years After He Wrote A Separate Peace." Sun Sentinel. Sun Sentinel, 15 Mar. 1987. Web. 06 May 2014. .-
"John Knowles." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Apr. 2014. Web. 02 May 2014. .
"Thornton Wilder." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Apr. 2014. Web. 02 May 2014. .
In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the narrator, Gene Forrester struggles to earn and preserve a separate peace. The story takes place in a remote boarding school named Devon, in New Hampshire. While Gene and Finny are in school, World War II is taking place. The author clearly explains an important story about the jealousy between Gene and his best friend, Phineas. Gene suspects that Finny is trying to sabotage his grades, and Gene allows his jealousy to control his actions. Therefore, Gene misinterprets their relationship by thinking that they shared enmity towards each other, and this caused Gene to enter a world of jealousy and hatred, which ultimately leads to Finny’s death. By examining this jealousy, John Knowles
Friendship is a necessity throughout life whether it is during elementary school or during adulthood. Some friendships may last a while and some may last for a year; it depends on the strength of the bond and trust between the two people. In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the main characters, Gene and Finny, did not have a pure friendship because it was driven by envy and jealousy, they did not feel the same way towards each other and they did not accurately understand each other.
In John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace, the theme of loss of innocence is skillfully developed through setting, character, and symbols. This story simply details a young man's entering the adult world as all children do. Everyone suffers loss of innocence.
In John Knowles’ novel A Separate Peace, Finny acts like a leader by being persuasive, caring, and creative. Finny tends to show creativeness in a situation that needs it which creates him as a leader image. He can be caught caring for others a lot which allows him to be called a leader. Both a leader and Finny can often be found to possess the trait of persuasiveness.
At the beginning of the literary criticism, it discusses how the book, A Separate Peace, began growing in popularity through the 1900’s. The book was first published by Secker and Wanderburg in London, England (Alton). Its sales drastically went up after it won the William Faulkner Foundation Award (Alton). After that, many teachers wanted A Separate peace to replace the classic, Catcher and the Rye, due to the profanity found in the latter (Alton). After that, the various authors in the literary criticism discuss the praises and criticisms they have of the plot and characters in A Separate Peace. The first praise comes from David Holborn. He discusses how the flashback technique used at the beginning of the novel helps draw the reader
An Analysis of Inner Conflict in A Separate Peace In 1942, a group of prep school boys take courses to allow them extra time to prepare for the armed forces. Gene, a conservative intellectual, befriends Finny, a free-spirited adventurer. The two form a club where they must dive from a high tree limb into the Devon River. He becomes anxious that his friend is taking time away from his studies.
Beyond the basic need for a sense of control, people are driven by their sense of identity, of who they are. Each person lives in their own universes, which are centered upon their feeling of self-purpose. There are multiple types of identities such as individual and group identities. Each person's identity is formed differently because of the unique experiences every individual encounters. The formation can be affected by many things such as their home environment, social concurrences, and physiological health. This story, A Separate Peace, exhibits interesting main characters which establish the frequent struggles of personal identity in adolescence.
In A Separate Peace, John Knowles demonstrates how the boys’ “separate peace” has underlying war imagery through their symbols and behavior.
22 Brinkley, Alan An Uneasy Peace 1988-, Vol. 10 of 20th Century America, 10 vols. (New York: Grolier 1995):22
John Howard Griffin, an American author, photographer and journalist, was best known for his six-week long diary of a journey into oblivion, Black Like Me (1961). He was born the second son of John Walter and Lena May on June 16, 1920 in Mansfield, Texas.
When he grew older, he struggled to get into Bates College in Maine. In 1920, he completed his B.A. and decided to attend the University of Chicago. 5 years later, he graduated school with an M.A. and a Ph.D. in the School of Religion in 1935. All through his school years, he also taught as a teacher at Morehouse College, and at a school in South Carolina. However, Morehouse was what impacted him the most. Reason
In 1959 his family moved to Long Beach, Indiana where he attended first, a Catholic Elementary School (Notre Dame), and then a private Catholic boarding school (La Lumiere in La Porte, Indiana). John then entered Harvard with aspirations of becoming a history professor. After graduating from Harvard, summa cum laude, after only three years, He then attended the School of Law at Harvard. It was at Harvard law school that John discovered his passion for law and graduated, magna cum laude, with a J.D. In 1979. While at Harvard Law School he also he was also the managing editor of the Harvard Law Review (John Roberts Biography).
At one level, John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, is about a quest for peace--world peace, inner peace, as well as peace in personal relationships. In the novel, the Devon school is a source of peace for the students, acting as an escape from the war going on in the world around them. Finny searches for a way to find inner peace after his accident by denying there the war was even real. Gene seeks peace in his friendship with Finny after being filled with guilt for what he had done to his friend.
Holsti, K. J. Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648-1989. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print.