A Separate Peace Critical Analysis Essay

His “first mistake” lead to many more. He reflects, “In a position of moral leadership, of course, compromise begets only more compromise” (p.169). Hundert continues to ignore his own “code of morals” when Sedgewick cheats during the “Mr. Julius Ceaser” competition, the Headmaster even intimidates him to remain silent. Hundert describes his act as a “soldier following his captain’s orders.” Hundert reflects, “What had happened was that instead of enforcing my own code of morals, I had allowed Sedgewick Bell to sweep me summarily into his” (p. 172).

After Macbeth murdered Duncan and drove away the two princes. He felt no happiness or tranquility. He lived the rest of his life in nightmares and fears which denounced his actions. He realized how unscrupulous his actions were and his souls is long huanted by it. After the murder, he does not dare to put the dagger back.

Gene is freed of the hatred and jealously that plagued him when Finny was alive. With his new viewpoint on life Gene states, “I was ready for the war, now that I no longer had any hatred to contribute to it. My fury was gone, I felt it gone, dried up at the source, withered and lifeless. Phineas had absorbed it and taken it with him, and I was rid of it forever” (Knowles 203).

Months later, Finny finds out that Gene purposely jounced the limb. He is fuming with anger as he sprints out of the room. He then falls down the stairs and breaks his leg, leading to his death a few days later. Though Gene has the impression that his envy for Finny is going to be beneficial in some way, it limits him in all aspects of life. He is not capable of always living to the fullest and having gratitude for what gifts he has, such as academics.

Ralph Emerson once said,” Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide” (370). In the novel, A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles readers are taken on a journey about a young boy named Gene Forrester who struggles finding himself. Gene faces these obstacles because he is determined to be his best friend, Finny in every aspect. The novel demonstrates how Gene finds that there is no separate peace after a challenging period at Devon, where he grows from a boy to a young man ready for war. In the novel readers see countless times where Gene conforms for Finny and by doing this Gene starts envying and imitating Finny.

Shelley’s novel encompasses the unknown and how ambition drove Victor’s passions, ultimately leading him to the tragic end with many other bumps in the road along the way. As Victor had been in the study of life and its cause, the death of his mother had catalyzed a movement of grief which had started, “…depriv[ing him]self of rest and health. [Which he] had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation…” (Shelley 35). Even though he knew that he had been raiding graveyards, Victor believed that he created the body with the ‘finest body parts’ available.

Additionally, Inspector Goole states that "If men do not learn their lesson, they will be taught in fire and blood and anguish." The terms "fire," "blood" and "anguish" connotes aspects of hell and war, this statement is dramatic irony because, during the time of the play, society has undergone two world wars, implying that society has failed to "learn their lesson" and create a united community. Furthermore, Inspector Goole states that "Millions and millions of Eva Smith's and John Smith's still left with us." The repetition of the word "Million" exaggerates the uncountable amounts of "Eva Smiths and John Smiths" living within

Jim’s emptiness and hollowness of his character has been completely bombarded from what he has witnessed and felt. Although the wider message of ‘Fly away peter’ is a story of how Jim’s innocence was stolen from him in a deadly manner it is also a message of how the main protagonist Jim, changes his way of living for his development and survival. “Jim saw that he had been living, till he came here (pre-war), in a state of dangerous innocence… He had been blind.” (pg. 103).

The first reason why Gene finds peace is because he realizes that Phineas was not the enemy and that the real enemy was himself. He describes the realization by saying, “All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy who they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way--if he was indeed the enemy.” (Knowles 204). At this point, in the end of the story, Gene recognizes that he was fighting a battle against someone who was not fighting back, and that the person he thought was the enemy was not actually the enemy. Next, Gene also gains peace because he finds his own identity after Phineas dies.

Marlin recognizes that there is a difference between overprotective and being an excellent parent. He transformed from an easily frightened clown fish to a fish that is able to go out and do whatever it takes to protect his son Nemo. Marlin also learns that Nemo must learn some life lessons on his own. When the movie had just begun, Marlin did not trust his son and always made decisions for him. Now that he has a more open mind regarding the big decisions in his Nemo’s life they will now have a stronger and everlasting relationship.

Theme 1.1: Envy. In Knowles’s coming of age book, “A Separate Peace”, there are lots of mishaps that happen and the beginning of these mishaps is when one of his main characters, Gene, starts thinking malicious things about Phineas, his friend. It started out as a small inkling of envy, suddenly later on in the book, it turned into something that resembled a fractious disaster. As the chapters progress, Gene shows the readers his way of thinking towards Phineas, by describing his “unexpected excitement” (27) when Phineas was about to receive a scolding from Mr. Patch-Wither, the substitute headmaster of Devon during the summer session. Surprisingly, when Phineas (aka Finny) further explained why he wore the school tie as a belt,

Brinker Hadley, Devon’s resident overachiever, suggests to Gene that they enlist together, and Gene agrees. When Finny returns, he and Gene become incredibly close, both choosing to ignore Gene’s hysterical confession Finny begins grooming Gene to take his place as the school’s sports star, as Finny is clearly no longer able to, setting their sites on the 1944 Olympics (something Finny himself had aspired to prior to his fall). Finny declares that the war is nothing but a conspiracy by rich, fat, old men to keep young men from eclipsing the older authorities and claiming knowledge do to his sufferings. All the boys are surprised when a gentle, nature-loving boy named Leper Lepellier becomes the first one in their class to enlist, joining the Ski Troops.

This hits especially close to home for Doug because his brother, Lucas, has recently returned home missing both of his legs. Suddenly, Doug sees Coach in a whole new way; he views Coach as someone who has many gruesome experiences he struggles with. Doug wants Coach to help Lucas, who is dealing with his own burdens of war, but Coach always brushes off his requests. Finally, one day outside the library, Coach Reed says to Lucas, “‘Maybe you could come work for me’,” (Schmidt pg. 337). This influences Doug indirectly because Lucas now has a job, making him feel purposeful, and the money Lucas makes is going towards Doug’s future college education.

However, the irony of war to the soldiers is further displayed when Cross ends up becoming too obsessive over Martha when “carrying” his things, and barely even acknowledges the death of one of his soldiers in Ted Lavender. He then does not come back in touch with reality until the next morning when he realizes how idiotic he has become to love his illusion more than reality. As a result, he decides to burn the things he carries in an attempt to end his obsession, but it is evident that this is ultimately a continuing conflict he will have to battle throughout the book. In this passage, I noticed how prevalently longer sentences were incorporated within the text to indicate the plethora of things the soldiers carry in common.

Because the social ladder is built based off of race, Tom immediately gets cast to the bottom without a second thought. “Sorry” is italicized to illustrate the disbelief, which contributes to the fact that the public does not accept Tom’s honest sympathy for Mayella, nor do they even attempt to understand him. Because of this narrow-minded thinking, Tom’s biased persecution eventually escalates to his death. Another example of the little empathy the town possesses is presented in Scout’s third-grade classroom, where lessons are learned from current events. Given that To Kill a Mockingbird is set around the 1930s, of course, one day the topic of Hitler is brought up.