A Separate Peace Literary Analysis

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The setting of the novel, a Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is set in New England at a boys only school called Devon. The year it is set in is 1942. During this time, World War Two was going on. Young boys were very vulnerable into going to the war. In the hopes of young men going to the war many of them would come together at a school and prepare on getting drafted into to war. The war brought many people together and it also tore many people apart. In this book many lessons were taught. Gene Forrester is a very intelligent student who transfers to Devon school. Gene is introduced as a nice soft spoken boy who is a go getter with his studies.In the beginning of the story he seems like a very nice well rounded boy. As the story goes on …show more content…

Gene starts struggling battling jealousy after seeing finny being so successful with his athletic accomplishments and how well he could please people. Gene is jealous of Finny that he can go have fun and still be good at whatever he does without practicing. Gene says talking about Finny “It seemed that he had made some kind of parallel between studies and his sports. He probably thought anything you were good at camae without effort. He didn’t know yet the he was unique.”(58) Gene wished he could be like him, so the only way his jealousy would win was if he pushed Finny out of the tree. After Finny falls out of the tree, Gene has to deal with the guilt of knowing what he did to Finny. The other conflict he has is when he has to deal with the reality of the truth of what he did, which makes him feel very upset. After Finnys death Gene has to deal with knowing he already killed his best friend. He has to deal with his own demons of guilt and knowing what he did. At the end of the book Gene states “I was an active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there”(182) Referring to what he did to Finny and how it'll always mentally affect him. This causes Gene to realize he has to live with the guilt of knowing what he did to his best friend

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