The quote, “Ignorance is bliss,” by Thomas Gray is a seemingly adequate description of the lives of Gene, Finny, and Leper until they are all roughly jolted out of their fantasy world and brought back to reality. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles does an acceptable job of showing how disillusionment can greatly impact and, thus, change the lives of people. The book showcases the cycle of disillusionment and the ramifications it implies. Throughout the book, we see Gene, Leper, and Finny’s views on the world change. This all culminates in Gene being elevated to a higher level of understanding of the world and seeing the truth about Devon and the war. The illusions created by Finny and Leper are also taken on by Gene, and he, in turn, shares in their disillusionment. Overall, disillusionment is a part of life and often serves as a tool to help many people grow and learn from the past. For Finny and Gene, the summer session at Devon was a time of blissful happiness and a time where they allowed themselves to become utterly overtaken by their own illusions. The summer session was the complete embodiment of peace and freedom, and Gene saw Devon as a haven of peace. To them, the war was light years away and was almost like a dream than an actual event. At Devon, it was hard for them to imagine that war could even exist. Finny and Gene forged the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session and acted out in the most wild and boisterous ways. Missing dinner or being absent from school for days to go to the beach did not even earn them a reprimand. “I think we reminded them of what peace was like, we boys of sixteen....We were careless and wild, and I suppose we could be thought of as a sign of the life the war was being fought to prese... ... middle of paper ... ...couldn’t see anyone as his enemy. Even Gene had his own enemy to kill, “I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there. Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone (Knowles 196).” To conclude, disillusionment played a sizeable role in the lives of Finny, Gene, and Leper. The source of their disillusionment stemmed from their dreams, ideas, and hopes that were never realized. Disillusionment is a natural and crucial part of life as it allows us to learn new things and discover new ideas. Every experience teaches us something new and helps us progress as people. The most important aspect of this book is disillusionment because, as George Santayana said, “Wisdom comes by disillusionment.”
At the Devon School, the climate of war creates an even greater impedance in the way of Gene and Phineas’ development, as now both characters must attempt to understand death. For Gene at such a young age, death has never been a part of his life until Phineas dies. Phineas has always been fated to die, but Gene is not able to comprehend this until Finny falls down the marble stairs at the First Academy Building. On revisiting the marble stairs, Gene recognizes their “exceptional hardness” (Knowles 11). The hardness that Gene speaks of is representative of the hardness of coping with war and death during such a crucial developmental time. This imagery is utilized by Knowles in A Separate Peace to define that until Gene recognizes the incomprehensible nature of war and death, he will never escape the liminal state. By watching Phineas fall down the marble stairs, Gene is enlightened to the fact that war is real, death cannot be avoided, and both can never be
Dr. Wayne Dyer once said, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” This saying is also true for the personality of Brinker Hadley, a character in A Separate Peace. In this novel, Brinker and his group of friends spend their time at Devon School making memories with exciting, yet dangerous adventures. With the idea of World War II in the back of their minds, the boys are trying to focus on the joys in life. However, a situation caused by Brinker’s questioning brings great sorrow. Brinker Hadley represents a headstrong, lawful, and perhaps misconceived character in this novel,
A persona is a mask shown to the outside world developed in relation to consciousness, to hide the darkest aspects of a psyche, known as a shadow, behind it. Shadows contrast personas by holding undesirable and unwanted memories and behaviors, but the dark side of an individual must be accepted for the individual to fully understand oneself. In the coming of age novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, narrator Gene Forrester returns to New Hampshire to visit Devon School, where he studied fifteen years ago just as World War II had begun to unfold. The narrative shifts back fifteen years ago to Gene’s days at Devon School with his best friend, Phineas, also known as Finny, as he recalls memorable events from his past. Gene’s persona and shadow
Power, the perception of superiority over another human, is the source of many conflicts between people. Feeling inferior causes people to act beyond their normal personality. John Knowles strongly demonstrates this point in his work, A Separate Peace. In the relationship between Finny and Gene, Gene sets himself up to be inferior in the balance of power which motivates him to act irrationally to take power back from Finny.
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
"Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it" ( Knowles 5). In this novel A Separate Peace, using these words, John Knowles reveals the fear that haunts the students at Devon and when they proceeded with all their training for the war they mature into adults.
Gene was only a mediocre athlete and is always jealous of Finny. They form a Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session which includes jumping from a tree into a river as its initiation. Eventually, Finny falls from the tree fracturing his leg. This leads to Finny’s death and Gene struggle to find himself. The relationship between these two boys proves my thesis statement; a friend and an enemy can be one in the same.
This internal battle to transform the war mindset of a soldier to the norms of society is exemplified through Norman’s actions. First, this is displayed through the situation at the Drive Thru. Norman’s distance from society is shown when he attempts to order from Mama’s Burgers, but does it incorrectly, as the procedure has evolved. This evolution reflects the transformation of the world that occurred while Norman was in the war. Thus, when he returns he is stuck in the past, and not confident in how to proceed into the future. This disparity with time is again echoed with Norman’s compulsion of guessing the time. This symbolizes that he is mentally frozen in time, unable to adapt. In addition, while Norman drives through his town, he sees a change in the lake. “The lake had divided into two halves. One half still glistened, the other was caught in shadow.” (O’Brien, 150). This division among the lake represents the divide Norman saw among the world he lived in as he attempted to adhere to the norms of society. The glistening half of the lake represents the life outside of the war, shining and drawing attention. Meanwhile, the side caught in the shadows depicts the side of Norman that is still within the war, hidden in darkness, unpresentable. Additionally, this reflects the silence that Norman was forced into about his memories of the war. His thoughts had to be hidden in the darkness. This is reinforced as Norman imagines telling several people, such as his Dad, Sally Gustafson, and the voice over the intercom, his story about almost receiving the Silver Star award. However, he does not. “He could not talk about it and never would. The evening was smooth and warm.” (O’Brien, 153). In his suicide itself, this oath of silence is present. Norman left no note and no explanation. Overall, Norman’s death raises the issue of
...s, demonstrated through the author's talent, are denouncing the authority figures who were supposed to guide his generation into adulthood but instead turned the youth against each other in the pursuit of superficial ideals. The soldiers were simply the victims of a meaningless war.
War deprives soldiers of so much that there is nothing more to take. No longer afraid, they give up inside waiting for the peace that will come with death. War not only takes adolescence, but plasters life with images of death and destruction. Seeger and Remarque demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men in war through diction, repetition, and personification to relate to their readers that though inevitable and unpredictable, death is not something to be feared, but to calmly be accepted and perhaps anticipated. The men who fight in wars are cast out from society, due to a misunderstanding of the impact of such a dark experience in the formative years of a man’s life, thus being known as the lost generation.
In John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, Gene and Phineas strive to find their true selves which is normal for teenagers. The Greek poet and playwright Sophocles suggest that humans never reach a full realization of who they are as individuals until they find another human being with whom the person can share themselves with. This story starts with Gene as an adult reflecting on how he no longer considers places at Devon fearful anymore. Over the course of Gene and Phineas’ friendship, Gene accumulates guilt and jealousy which fabricates fearful places. The fearful places include, the tree and the marble stairs. The reason Gene came back to Devon was to confront places he considered fearful. He no longer considers them fearful places once
Along with their friends, Gene and Finny play games and joke about the war instead of taking it seriously and preparing for it. Finny organizes the Winter Carnival, invents the game of Blitz Ball, and encourages his friends to have a snowball fight. When Gene looks back on that day of the Winter Carnival, he says, "---it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace" (Knowles, 832). As he watches the snowball fight, Gene thinks to himself, "There they all were now, the cream of the school, the lights and leaders of the senior class, with their high IQs and expensive shoes, as Brinker had said, pasting each other with snowballs"(843). Another of the principal themes in this novel is the theme of maturity.
An inner evil that the characters in these novels experience is personal war. A personal war is a fight within your mind. In A Separate Peace, Gene hates Phineas and this is ironic because Phineas and Gene are best friends. Phineas loves and doesn’t think Gene will ever hurt him but gene has always hated him. Phineas is a leader and Gene is a follower. While standing at the top of the tree Gene ponders, “ Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? was he getting some kind of hold over me” (Knowles 17). This represents the inner evil of man because Gene’s thoughts were things that he kept inside and they are killing him. His thoughts are evil, cruel, and powerful enough for him to begin hating his best friend. Another ironic situation occurs in Lord of the Flies, when the other boys kill Simon. This is ironic because Simon thought the boys were his friends. living on a island drove the boys to become vicious enough to kill an innocent person. The inner evil in man is widely expressed through this ironic scene because innocent boys become killers due to their inner evil. Also, it is ironic when Leper goes crazy. leper truly believes the propaganda of war and never imagined the outcome would be his insanity. The other boys get a note from him saying he ran away from the war and then they see him: “ I saw Leper hiding in the shrubbery next to the chapel/ he didn’t say a damn word. he looked at me like I was a gorilla or something” (Knowles 163). This situation can be evidence of the inner evil of man because the people in charge of the propaganda never warned Leper so in result he went insane. Lastly, the clash between Ralph and Jack shined light on the inner evil of man. The two boys couldn’t stand being near each other , Jack even says, ‘ You go away Ralph. You keep to your end/this is my end and my tribe. You leave me alone” ( Golding 176). The tension
in Gene and in the death of Finny. Having all of the cards out on the
The island on which the boys have been stranded posses an evil and corrupting society, which depletes all innocence the boys once obtained. This is a drastic transformation as now the boys are hungry to kill and do not withhold any sense of their old civilizations moral values. William Golding shows the society people are swallowed up by molds their beliefs and values through the extensive change young, innocent, boys have gone through.