Conflict In A Separate Peace

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Recommended: The human condition in literature

Grace Mills
Mrs. Miller
AP Lit 11
11 March 2014
The Inevitability of Conflict A Separate Peace
From past, present, to future, conflict has defined history. In a world full of battles, revolutions, and seemingly random acts of evil, it is impossible to escape the reality of it all. Many of today’s great classics have been inspired by generations of conflict. Using World War II as the background for John Knowles’ novel A Separate Peace brings up the question if it is ever possible to live in a world without fear, hate and ultimately inevitable conflict. Knowles uses contrasting characters, the innate nature of humans, and contradictory symbols in order to reflect that conflict is inevitable.
A Separate Peace revolves around two very different characters Gene and Phineas, and the relationship between them. Knowles uses these two contrasting characters who have very distinct personalities and morals to help understand the reality of mankind. Phineas captures the readers attention from page one. He is athletic, good-looking, clever, and everyone seems to follow his lead. Phineas seems to have a unique sense of peace with himself, and with the world around him. Everyone at Devon seemed to strive to be the best and to let everyone know it. Everyone that is, except for Phineas. One regular day during the summer session, Phineas decides to break the school swimming record when he realizes no one in his class has broken the current record. Phineas may not have been on the school swim team, but that didn’t stop him from hopping him and seeing if he could beat the record. He then breaks the record, but strangely tells Gene, “It’s just between you and me. Don’t say anything about it, to...anyone” (Knowles 45). This statement in itself seems...

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...at he is living in, but can not exist amongst it because of the all the hate, violence, and fear that he knows exists and can not be avoided.
As perfect as a world without conflict would be, it simply can not exist. Due to some innate ignorance in the human heart, from the beginning of man, fear and hate has lead to the creation of these enemies that then must be destroyed. Knowles creates a character who is born without this fear and hate in their heart, and in turn, their ignorance leads to their destruction. Human nature makes it inevitable that conflict will arise. This inevitability for conflict is also shown through the contrasting symbols of the book, summer and winter. While it may be nice to always being living peaceful summertime, humans know of too much hate and evil to exist in this ideal word. Conflict is unavoidable, and the future can not escape it.

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