Analysis Of The Novel 'A Separate Peace' By John Knowles

According to the National Center for Post, one of every 20 World War II veterans suffered from war stress, during and after the war. This number is meaningful because it shows how powerful the war is, causing people to make drastic change and undergo lots of stress. This statistic is prevalent in the novel A Separate Peace as the book takes place in the midst of WWII. In the story, the boys have to deal with the challenges of growing up, and leave the world they know at Devon. In A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles argues that Leper and Brinker are unable to develop for the better since they let the war get the best of them, whereas Gene is able to move forward because of the way each found dealt with the changes and stress of the war.

Lepper displays his views on skiing to Gene while he is skiing, “They're ruining skiing in this country, rope tows and chair lifts and all that stuff. You get carted up, and then you whizz down. You never get to really look at the trees, at a tree” (Knowles, 95). At this point, Lepper can be seen as a person who is true to nature and loves the outdoors. This is exemplified in the way he loves to look at trees, which most take for granted since there are so many of them. As Lepers character develops, his personality begins to make changes without even realizing. Lepper displays this change in the way he reacted to the ski troops video, “‘It's alright to miss seeing the trees and the countryside and all the other things if you've got to be in a hurry. And when you're in a war you've got to be in a hurry’” (125). At this moment, Lepper is convinced that he should sign up, which completely contradicts what he had thought before. Before, he loved seeing the trees when skiing but now he is willing to give that all up, showing how the war persuades people to

After talking to Finny on the phone, Gene said to himself “I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas” (85),. At this point, instead of discovering his own identity Gene decides to give his up for Finny's. Gene says he felt freedom becoming part of Finny, showing he is not content with himself so he wanted to be someone else, like Finny who he admires. Therefore, Gene didn't want to discover his own identity, making him unable to develop and the only way he could get his back, would be if Finny died... At Finny's funeral, Gene thought this to himself, “I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case” (194). Gene, at this moment feels as if Finny's funeral is his own, but now that Finny had died, the part of Finny that is apart of Gene had died. By this occurring, it means that Gene can finally discover his own identity and not Finny's identity, which he has been living without for most of the story. This shows that Gene has progressed since he has now claimed his old identity and learned from his mistakes, that he has to be himself, not someone