The anti-war genre is a very demanding and important topic for writers in journalism and literature. A Separate Peace is a novel based on World War II, which had been written shortly after the war ended. Some people might not think of A Separate Peace as an anti-war novel, but there are hidden details that the readers can decipher into anti-war related topics. Gene and Finny, respectively the protagonist and antagonist in the novel, attend Devon School in New Hampshire. Gene, the protagonist, is the narrator in the novel. He is quiet, intellectual, and very introverted. Sometimes Gene finds himself jealous of Finny and thinks about what it would be like to be him, he says, “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I …show more content…
couldn't help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little” (Knowles 25). Finny, the antagonist in the novel, is Gene’s best friend and roommate at Devon School. He is handsome, athletic, likeable, friendly, and studious. Maintaining a focus on the loss of innocence, Knowles’ coming-of-age novel seeks to demonstrate the pernicious nature of war through the assumed rivalry between Gene and Finny, the mental breakdown of Leper, and the general setting of the Devon School. Gene and Finny are “best friends,” but in the novel, not everything is always as it seems.
When the readers look in depth, they can soon realize that they are having a true inner-war with themselves. Gene and Finny both do not enlist in the war or even see the war’s true ugliness. Gene and Finny create the war in their own imaginations, with also gives them very skewed opinions. Gene likes to express that he fought his own war in Devon academy, and also that he kills his enemy in the war with his own self. Gene expresses himself by saying, “I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there” (Knowles 204). In spite of his jealousy, Gene pushes Finny of the tree and causes Finny to be severely injured. Until that quote, Gene could not admit to himself that he was in the wrong and he had horribly hurt Finny. When Gene and Finny discuss war, Finny does not believe that the war is real and he thinks that the war was made up to keep people in their places and to keep kids from having fun. Finny thinking this impacts what everyone thinks, “[his] insistence that there is no war lulls the students of Devon into believing that there really is no war” (Devine 519). Finny does not want to go to war due to his lack of faith and trust in it. Although, when you are becoming a senior at Devon School, you always spend most of your time training and also
preparing. Most of the time at Devon School, you are either physically or mentally training for the war. All the students at Devon think about is the war and how they must prepare for what they are about to endure. Anne Alton says, “Typically, such a school is a place for graduation and growth. Here it also represents the last place of freedom and safety for the boys,” (1-2) Alton thinks that the school should be more focused on academics and growth of the students. Even though these students are located in New Hampshire, they still must think about how the war will affect their futures. Gene says, “The class above, seniors, draft bait, practically soldiers, rushed ahead of us toward the war. They were caught up in accelerated courses and first-aid programs and a physical hardening regimen, which included jumping from this tree.” (Knowles 15) To relate to the war in the novel, the boys make a game called blitz ball which could coincidentally be related to blitzkrieg, the German Air Force. While all of the boys realize they must wait until they are done with their schooling, Leper enlists in the war early, before he graduates from school. Each boy has to create their own path and future, but in Devon School, your future is set without any regards to your own beliefs. Leper, a student at Devon School, is a boy who enjoys nature and likes to ski. Leper leaves school early and enlists in the war. After enlisting, Leper has many mental breakdowns. His insanity can be described as growing up too quickly due to the war, everyone says that he enlisted in war too young. His rigorous training and the disgusting reality of war causes Leper to be the the reason as to why he goes insane. From the beginning, Leper seems mentally unstable and breaks down from stress. When kids are growing up, they have careless fun, but when Leper enlisted in the army, his innocence is stripped away. When leper comes back to reality, he says, "that was when things began to change. One day I couldn't make out what was happening to the corporal's face. It kept changing into faces I knew from somewhere else, and then I began to think he looked like me…" (Knowles 150). The war was not what Lepper expected and now everyone was extremely terrified of enlisting in the war. Throughout this novel, the readers can see how Gene and Finny endure a loss of innocence through the setting of the Devon School. War is a complicated process that many people have trouble understanding. Gene and Finny both have very different views on war. Gene wants to enlist while Finny “knows that they must be comforting in every possible way to what is happening and what is going to happen,” (Mengeling 1). Finny knows what is going to happen while Gene is just very excited to enlist in the army. War forces these boys to form their own opinions and views about real world conflicts. A Separate Peace demonstrates how young boys can change “overnight” from being forced to lose their own innocence. This novel shows how Gene and Finny grow apart and could not find an equal balance of a real friendship. Gene and Finny both had to feel the impacts of war, loss of innocence, an intense school environment, and the guilty pressure of society to “be the best.”
In the story, Finny created a counterpart between his athleticism and Gene’s academic abilities. Since sports came easy to Finny, he assumed that Gene was naturally intelligent and smart. Finny eventually figured out that this was not true and that his assumptions were incorrect; “‘Oh for God sake! You don’t know what I’m talking about. No, of course not. Not you…’ ‘I didn’t know you needed to study,’ he said simply, ‘I didn’t think you ever did. I thought it just came to you.’ It seemed that he had made some kind of parallel between my studies and his sports. He probably thought anything you were good at came without effort” (Knowles 57-58). Finny was unable to comprehend that some skills do not come naturally to people. Devoted friendships are a result of having an appreciation for each other. Finny and Gene did not have this nor did they truly know each other very well. A lack of understanding between the two of them provoked various disputes throughout the novel. If Gene and Finny were truly friends, misunderstandings would not have occurred since they would have acknowledged their
At a young age everyone creates an enemy. Peace comes when this enemy leaves or has been destroyed. Everyone must fight, negotiate, and/or struggle with their enemy to be left with nothing but peace. Gene Forrester was the main character in the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles, which took place in the time of World War II. He made his enemy leave, through the death of his best friend Finny. As a result of fighting the wrong battle, Gene apologized to his friend Finny and found peace.
The characters in A Separate Peace are first seen as children. Gene and Phineas (or Finny), the main characters in A Separate Peace, are first portrayed as regular teenage boys, full of life, energy, and humor. Ready to find fun in everything, the boys even make games out of the war, including the "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session" (Knowles 24) and "blitzball" (Knowles 29). They jump out of trees as a substitute for jumping out of a plane and throw a round ball around, pretending that it's a bomb. People perceive them as "careless and wild" and perhaps even "a sign of the life the war was being fought to preserve" (Knowles 17). They go through things that everyone experiences as a teen: jealousy, peer pressure, and competition. They don't know very much about the war or about life itself. Finny even blatantly denies the existence of the war, saying that "the fat old men who don't want [them] crowding up their jobs" have "cooked up this war fake" (Knowles 107). One of the boys in their class, Leper, dreams of enlisting in the ski troops, seeing it as a safe, clean way to get involved in the war rather than having to kill and destroy.
Gene believes that people are deliberately out to get him and concentrates only on grasping the evil within his friends. Therefore, Gene decides to defeat his enemies before he gets defeated himself. During the summer session at Devon, Gene encounters a dark suspicion that his friend Finny is drawing him away from his studies in order to make him fail. This makes sense to Gene since he religiously follows the rules to win approval from the staff at Devon, and anyone who persuades him to disobey these rules wishes failure upon him. Therefore, Finny
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,
He becomes aware of Finny’s endurance, as “nothing as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last [Gene] had” (203). Following Finny’s death, Gene states how absolutely nothing could break Finny, not even a war. But the evilness of his shadow and unconscious self could, and cause Finny’s death. One’s shadow can be toxic when displayed to the outside world, especially when it is not in check by the individual. Gene has accepted his dark side when he admits he had been the cause of his friend’s death. In the very end of the novel, Gene finally takes responsibility for all of his shadow’s actions against his best friend, as he thinks to himself, “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” (204). Gene’s transformation from the beginning of the novel to the end is clearly seen in this quotation, as he no longer denies his shadow’s existence and now claims responsibility of the darkness inside himself. He illustrates himself as being on active duty at all times at school, staying on guard for any of Finny’s tricks that may potentially cause him to fall behind in his studies. His war with Finny, whom he once
In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the narrator, Gene Forrester struggles to earn and preserve a separate peace. The story takes place in a remote boarding school named Devon, in New Hampshire. While Gene and Finny are in school, World War II is taking place. The author clearly explains an important story about the jealousy between Gene and his best friend, Phineas. Gene suspects that Finny is trying to sabotage his grades, and Gene allows his jealousy to control his actions. Therefore, Gene misinterprets their relationship by thinking that they shared enmity towards each other, and this caused Gene to enter a world of jealousy and hatred, which ultimately leads to Finny’s death. By examining this jealousy, John Knowles
The development of the war occurs with the maturing of Gene and most of his fellow students. The negative diction associated with the war revealed how Gene feared and even hated just the idea of war. In the end, however, he realized his own involvement in the war included no real warfare. As the war continues, Gene gives up on childlike activities like games and instead joins the war efforts. Through the setting of the Devon School, Knowles shows how war can reach even the most sheltered places. War molds our youth and thus molds our
In the beginning of the novel, Gene, is a clueless individual. He sees the worst in people and lets his evil side take over not only his mind but also his body. During the tree scene, Gene convinces himself that Finny isn’t his friend, tricking himself into thinking that Finny is a conniving foil that wants to sabotage his academic merit. Gene is furthermore deluded that every time Finny invites Gene somewhere it’s to keep him from studying and doing well. Finny has a reputation for being the the best athlete in school, and Gene attempts to counterbalance Finny’s power by being the best student. After a while of joining Finny’s activities, Gene thinks that Finny is intentionally trying to make him fail out of school. He starts to dislike Finny and his activities, and Gene starts interrupt...
A Separate Peace shares the lives of students at Devon that are forced into an unknown world of fear, problems, and uncertainty as they head off to World War II in training to fight and represent their country where they will find or lose themselves and make important decisions that will impact their future. The students at Devon are put into adulthood at an early age, having to fight and make their country proud, but they are left feeling pressure for a war they do not start. The students enter a world of unexpectedness and dread where they are forced into adulthood through war, and are exposed to self sacrifice, physical awareness, and patriotism.
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.
In the early pages of the novel, Finny confesses that Gene is his best friend. This is considered a courageous act as the students at Devon rarely show any emotion. And rather than coming back with similar affection, Gene holds back and says nothing. Gene simply cannot handle the fact that Finny is so compassionate, so athletic, so ingenuitive, so perfect. As he put it, "Phineas could get away with anything." (p. 18) In order to protect himself from accepting Finny's compassion and risking emotional suffering, Gene creates a silent rivalry with Finny, and convinced himself that Finny is deliberately attempting to ruin his schoolwork. Gene decides he and Finny are jealous of each other, and reduces their friendship to cold trickery and hostility. Gene becomes disgusted with himself after weeks of the silent rivalry. He finally discovers the truth, that Finny only wants the best for Gene, and had no hidden evil intentions. This creates a conflict for Gene as he is not able to deal with Finny's purity and his own dark emotions. On this very day Finny wants to jump off of the tree branch into the Devon river at the same time as Gene, a "double jump" (p. 51), he says, as a way of bonding. It was this decision, caused by Finny's affection for Gene and outgoing ways that resulted in drastic change for the rest of his life.
In John Knowle’s A Separate Peace, symbols are used to develop and advance the themes of the novel. One theme is the lack of an awareness of the real world among the students who attend the Devon Academy. The war is a symbol of the "real world", from which the boys exclude themselves. It is as if the boys are in their own little world or bubble secluded from the outside world and everyone else. 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).
Throughout A separate Peace the author develops the characters along with the plot. A Separate Peace takes place during World War II in a boarding school called Devon. The plot develops as two best friends, and troublemakers, explore the trials of jealousy, friendship, and boyhood. Phineas, Gene, and Elwin ‘Leper’ Lepellier are all characterized through the events of this novel through their actions, thoughts, and reputation.
Due to our own human nature, people learn the best through their experiences, both positive and negative. It is important for teenagers to understand the process of maturing, especially through how their actions can affect other people. A Separate Peace is a story about a group of sixteen year old boys at a boarding school in the northeast at the beginning of World War II. Even though the book was written nearly 70 years ago, the characters are relevant today. Their story lets readers participate as they grow up over a few school years. Readers experience life at Devon, the boys’ school, through Gene Forrester. Gene develops friendships with a few key characters, but his roommate and best friend is Phineas. It is through the ups and downs