A Separate Peace By John Knowles: A Literary Analysis

The American Library Association defines a challenge to a book as, “an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based on the objections of a person or group” (“About Banned). A Separate Peace by John Knowles was one of the many challenged books of its time; it was ranked sixty-seventh on the American Literature Association’s list of most challenged classic novels The book continues to be challenged all over the country and in 2013 it is ranked thirty-fifth on the summer of banned books list .(ALA). A Separate Peace chronicles the life of a boy named Gene Forrester, a student of the prestigious Devon School in New Hampshire. In Gene’s first year at Devon. He becomes close friends with his daredevil of a roommate Finny. Secretly Gene somewhat

dislike Finny because he is athletic and a good natured kid. In the end however, Gene and Finny are split up by Finny’s death and by war. A Separate Peace has been challenged/banned for its offensive language and its explicit sexual content/ homosexual meanings, yet this book should be taught in high school classrooms because it sheds light on the aspect of growing up, the personal issues it highlights, and its high educational value.

As previously stated, John Knowles’s A Separate Peace has been challenged in a number of different places for a variety of reasons. Graphic language and explicit homosexual content are perhaps among the most well-known reasons cited for the challenge of the book.
Of these two main reasons A Separate Peace has been challenged, the graphic language is perhaps the most interesting. In 1980 the book was challenged in Vernon-Verona-Sherill, NY School District on the basis that it contained “explicit sexual material” (ALA). In a literary analysis of the book states that, “the central theme of A Separate Peace is finding your true Identity and Self-Realization of one’s self.” This central theme can be taken as being finding out who you are because at the beginning of the novel when Gene wasn't sure of who he was, and basically just followed along with whatever crazy ideas Finny had come up with, such as being the first ones in

their class to jump out of the tree. Gene didn't really want to, he was scared, but he did anyways because Phineas wanted to. This shows identity because Gene isn't sure of who he is, other than Phineas' best friend. In the novel Gene states that, “I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was... I decided to put on his clothes,” (Knowles 6) which displays the common theme of maturing into an adult. The definition of self-identification the feeling that you share and understand the problems or experiences of someone else. (Webster) This is a major pattern throughout the book such as when Gene says “To keep silent about this amazing happening deepened this shock for me. It made Finny seem too unusual for—not friendship, but too unusual for rivalry. And there were few relationships among us at Devon not based on rivalry” (Knowles 63). This logical understanding of this is just one of many examples in which Gene is trying to stop competing with Finny and start being like him. This shows that Gene is envious of Finny and denies himself into believing that their attributes are not so different. For these reasons the parents in Shelby County Tennessee believed that John Knowles’s novel had offensive language and attempted to have it removed from schools. Ironically however, in other parts of the country A Separate Peace has been banned due to its sexual content.
Secondly John Knowles uses this novel to shed light upon the importance of social aspects in everyday life.

His focus upon the importance of individuality is a constant throughout the novel and is displayed through Gene’s hatred toward Finny at the beginning of the novel only because he was more athletic than he was. (Knowles 43). Finny has always been a breaker of rules-game rules, school rules, the rules of a society at war that say that no one should be having fun now. But Gene's desire to break the boundaries of their separate human identities is finally still more radical. The reader might not think Finny's death is Gene's fault, but this desire to absorb his friend completely seems to require either Finny's actual death, which of course occurs, or the death of all difference between them, which one will argue also occurs (McGavran).Though Knowles is (to us) curiously coy in describing the death of Finny, even italicizing it as ‘that’, he considers it extremely important because of its concentration on pure pleasure.” This proves that Knowles is clearly focusing on the pleasures of emotion and feelings of Gene. Emotion and all other feeling is basically nonexistent in Gene, which is a clear warning to people today that that lust is not the answers to solving your problems even if it means losing someone you truly love and care

for.
Lastly this book has a high educational value to students particularly at the high school level. With Knowles’ great use of language and vocabulary with words such as “Virtuoso”, “Seigneur”, and “Rhetorically” just to name a few, students are forced to ponder the concepts of how language and vocabulary choice is created and how the language used in this novel and time period relates to the language in their own present day life. On a much deeper level students are challenged with understanding the inner struggle Gene is faced with throughout the book. He is faced with the fact that he is not completely sure who he is or whether or not he is a better overall than Finny is and yet he keeps his hope alive that maybe one day things will change. He is both cynical and simultaneously hopeful which forces students to pay even more attention to the context and tone of the book. The complicated emotion and structure of society is what gives this book a high educational value because its readers have to use inferences and think deeply in order to understand the true meaning.
Clearly there is much debate about whether or not A Separate Peace should be read in schools or at all. Is there a fair amount of explicit sexual content? Yes. Does the book portray teens in a very questionable way? Definitely. But when analyzing this book wholistically it has too much to offer to be hidden away from the eyes of students. The sexual content and difficult concepts causes this book to be more appropriate for older students, probably more suitable for high school students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grade. In extremely conservative areas such as the Deep South (Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, etc.) this book should be kept on the shelf mainly for the sexual content. In these areas the teaching of this book would cause a great deal of controversy that would outweigh any potential value to the readers. Yet most of the United States, especially in the modern era, students and parents alike would be much more accepting. Also the passing of the same sex marriage law in the summer of 2015 is not that far behind us, the book today would not seemingly get challenged for being a trashy sex novel or being homosexual. In other parts of the world this book should also be taught to older students of grades comparable to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade in America. Obviously in countries of oppressed peoples such as North Korea and China this book would not be a good choice for the classroom due to the portrayal of two very close and envious male teens (Tribunella). Overall though, older, more mature students worldwide would benefit greatly from reading this book.
Although A Separate Peace has a large amount of mature content such as explicit sexual scenes and very offensive graphic language, this book brings awareness to the process and struggle teens go through to fit in and grow up, a number of personal issues, and it has a high educational value. It has been challenged in a number of different areas for a variety of reasons and yet these are the very reasons Knowles wrote the book. The loss of innocence and maturing has less of a sad meaning but was went to be means for celebration. A celebration that every citizen in every society around the world should know. A celebration that every person should be aware of the happenings in the life of a teen at school during World War II because one knows when that information will be lost forever.