A Separate Peace Theme

In a song, an obsessed fan writes to his favorite music artist for the third time, hoping his hero will write back. In his letters he talks about why he identifies with him. When no response comes, he sends another letter, this time more frustrated and angry that he hasn’t gotten a response and that he waited for hours in the cold and didn’t get his autograph at a concert. When again he gets no response, the fan puts his girlfriend in the car and commits suicide by driving over a bridge’s rails. A person can be an innocent fan, and then lose that innocence when he overreacts when things don’t go his way. In A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the theme of Innocence is explored through war, the seasons, and Finny’s falls.

War makes a person leave youth and enter adulthood. When Leper joins the army because of advertising, he is still a child. The army was very different then what he thought it would be since he left youth before he was ready for adulthood. Before, Leper was a “tourist”, free and enjoys life, however, the army is a reality check and brings adulthood too fast and he cant fight his fear, “Leper, emerge from a protective cloud of vagueness only to meet it, the horror, face to face, just as he had always feared, and so give up the struggle absolutely. ”Now, his “I’m just touring” essence has

The first fall, which was a “messy break”, shows that Gene’s battles with jealousy are not without consequences. This envy is the “snake” that makes him to the deed. From this fall both Gene and Finny lose their innocence. Gene purposely hurt someone, which showed him the realities of war, and Finny was taken out of his “separate peace”. The second fall, which was a “clean break”, was on “the white marble steps.” This shows that the school’s values and authority and rules constricted Finny’s innocence and freedom and they hurt him. This fall totally breaks Finny’s youth and makes him an old man “rapping of his