Identity In A Separate Peace, By John Knowles

In John Knowles novel, A Separate Peace, the theme of identity is common and is often struggled with by the characters in the novel. The characters have a hard time with it because most times they don't know who they are, they don't feel comfortable in their own skin and they try to mold themselves into someone else.

At Devon School, the kids enrolled there all prepare themselves for what they see as the inevitable; enlisting in the war. When they reach senior year, the boys start to train for and focus on the war; because everyone seems to get caught up in enlisting for the war and being ready for it, pretty soon boys are just enlisting because the majority is doing it and they think they should to. “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”(1:15)This is an example of how the theme of identity is present because the boys are no longer identifying with what they themselves want or think they should do, but rather they start identifying themselves as seniors who have a responsibility to enlist in the war.
When Finny gets hurt the first time and has to spend time in his private home, Gene has a hard time dealing with the feelings and thoughts of guilt that were caused by the notion that it was Gene’s fault that Finny was hurt. Gene tries to find a way to almost become someone else, so he can escape himself. He does this by changing into Finny’s clothes and pretending he was Finny, “ I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was. […] I decided to put on his clothes. […]
This gave me such intense relief […]. I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again.” (5:62) Gene no longer feels comfortable or safe in his own skin and he thinks that running away from himself and everything he is feeling will help it. Later we find that he fails at his attempt to switch identities and is faced with the guilt for what he has done.
Another example of identity is when Leper goes to war and returns in a crazy state of being and requests Gene to come and visit him.

Their encounter goes less then smoothly and ends up upsetting both boys in the process, because Gene is so frightened by this psychotic Leper he separates this version of Leper from the Leper he knew before the war. “His eyes were furious now too, glaring blindly at me. "What do you know about it, anyway?" None of this could have been said by the Leper of the beaver dam” (10:143) Since Gene has a predetermined idea of how he thinks Leper is, the confrontation from Leper after the war throws Gene off and makes him uneasy; and the thing he thinks to do yet again to sooth his uneasy feelings is create a new identity; but this time for

Leper.
Finny and Gene have always been rivals in the way that they both long and want to be the best at something. It comes easier for Finny then it does Gene, Finny was a natural athlete and didn't even have to try while Gene had to study all the time in order to keep his good grades. So when Finny has an injury that prevents him from playing sports, he slowly starts to mold Gene into another version of himself, “My aid alone had never seemed to him in the category of help. The reason for this occurred to me as the procession moved slowly across the brilliant foyer to the doors; Phineas had thought of me as an extension of himself.”(12:180)For some reason Finny wants to have Gene become him, maybe its because of the fact that Gene is so eager to “become Finny” because of the guilt he feels; but no matter the reason, Finny is in a way supporting the desire of Gene that is to not be himself.
Finally, a last example of identity is after Finny’s death, while attending his funeral, Gene doesn't find himself crying at all.

He is feeling sad and empty without Finny but also feels like it was he himself who died, “I did not cry then or ever about Finny. I did not cry even when I stood watching him being lowered into his family's strait-laced burial ground outside of Boston. I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case.” (12:194) He states that you don't cry at your own funeral, meaning he felt as if he had died alongside Finny. This shows us how much of his identity has been changed, he feels as though he is no longer Gene and that he is Finny, but now that Finny is dead so is the part of him that was

Finny.
In conclusion, John Knowles brings up the theme of identity frequently in his novel, A Separate Peace. Through the characters he portrays the idea that simple things such as going with the flow of everyone else can cause one to change their identity and that feelings such as guilt or sorrow can also be a factor in wanting to become someone else. In the end straying from who you really are doesn't have always favorable outcomes.