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Analysis Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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A Separate Peace is a novel written by John Knowles that revolves around Gene Forrester, and his friend Phineas. The novel takes place during World War II at a boarding school called Devon in New Hampshire. While on the tree limb, Gene jounced the limb they were standing on and caused Finny to fall off and break his leg. A mock trial occurred and Gene is accused of purposefully jouncing the limb causing Finny to fall and break his leg. During this mock trial, Finny refuses to believe that Gene jounced the limb on purpose and rushes out of the room. He then falls down the stairs breaking his leg a second time. While the doctor was setting his bone back into place, some bone marrow escaped and went into his heart causing Finny to eventually die. …show more content…

The entire time Finny and Gene are boarding at the Devon School, WWII is taking place. There are students enlisting and being drafted into the war and are surround by stress because they are worrying about being involved in the war. “The far common could be seen from my room, and early in June, I stood at the window and watched the war moving in to occupy it” (196). This quote is showing how resources at Devon School were being occupied and handed over to the unforgiving war. War, a scary thought and even a scarier reality during this time period. “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” (27). This makes the war a reality for Gene, unescapable. Because this quote explains how the upperclassmen can be seen getting ready for the very war he fears. “Bombs in Central Europe were completely unreal to us here, not because we couldn't imagine it […] but because our place here was too fair for us to accept something like that” 44. This is a quote that helps to explain what happened during WWII, in which one of the things that did happen was the bombs being dropped over Central Europe. It’s a scary thought to picture, but to many people’s dismay, it actually happened. It is evident to them that war is unavoidable no matter how hard they try to avoid

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The Theme Of Growth And Change In A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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Tyler Chang Mr. Gurrieri English 1 Honors; Class 4 16 November, 2017 Growth and Change in A Separate Peace John Knowles is an award winning author of the novel, A Separate Peace, tells a story of a few college kids and how they began to change in a short period of time. With a world war going on behind the scenes, Finny and Gene, who are best friends, start a war between themselves. Finny, who is an athletic, popular, and taunting person pushes Gene, who is intelligent, unathletic, and lonely out of his comfort zone to try new things. Gene continues to follow Finny until one day he has had enough of him. Both wars progress and grow larger and relationships begin to break apart.

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In the book A Separate Peace two mutual friends Gene Forrester and Finny become school friends. The two get along quite well, but one major difference between them was the thought of Gene thinking that Finny was jealous of his tutelage and thought he was trying to draw him away from his studies, the difference of Finny was his athletic ability that Gene lacked. The culture of Gene is very much different than Finns. Gene is a bookworm who excels in his academic studies therefore he has no time for athletic sports.

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Have you ever had a friend with whom you were competitive? Someone who you knew and liked as a friend but deep down you wanted to be better in everything than them? In the novel, A Separate Peace, John Knowles paints a clear picture of this struggle through his main character, Gene Forrester. Gene goes to Devon School during World War 2 and has a dear friend there named Phineas who is also known as Finny. Gene believes that they are good friends but deep down he has certain things that he resents about Finny.

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In John Knowles', A Separate Peace, he shows us that friendship is a battle that expresses your true identity and is held together by rivalry. It requires commitment, love, and loyalty from both parties. Finny and Gene have major ups and down all throughout the novel but always find a way to make it through the rough patches and settles things calm, cool, and collectively in the end. The boys faced many problems such as Gene making Finny fall off the tree and also when Finny tried to make Gene not do well in his academics. This book teaches that friendship is a very strong bond.

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There are, and always will be, characters in literature that constantly conform, and just want to fit in. These characters, however, are not typically the narrator, such as is true in A Separate Peace by John Knowles. The narrator, Gene, constantly changes tone throughout the novel. These changes in tone are erratic, and are seemingly random. When it’s closely examined, it becomes increasingly clear that Gene clings to and mirrors the tone of the strongest leader available.

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Thought Over Truth How do you know the whole story if you were only told from one perspective? A Separate Peace is a novel by John Knowles told during World War II, from the perspective of Gene Forrester, an intelligent, but not athletic student. Gene tells his memory of his senior year at Devon School, a school which only boys attend, but is his memory the whole truth? Gene has shown us that he is misleading and biased.

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A Separate peace is novel, which is drawn into internal and external war conflicts throughout the novel. The author John Knowles focuses mainly on the internal conflict, which is war with oneself. He portrays this through the character of Gene. The external conflict is also war, which is played as the setting in the novel. Gene goes through a form of internal conflict, he fights within himself about jealousy and fear.

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A separate peace by … opens with Gene, the narrator, revisiting his old school in Devon, New Hampshire. As he walks through the campus, he sees the tree that begins a flashback into his schoolboy days. The scene jumps (Hehe “jumps” see what I did there) to Gene standing by the same tree that led to this flashback with his friend/roommate Phineas and a timid guy named Elwin who is nicknamed Leper. Finny (Phineas) suggest that they jump out of the tree; Gene thinks it’s a bad idea, but no one else complies. As the story continues, we find that Finny is a great athlete, very charismatic, and gets away with rebelling against the rules.

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In the novel, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the two best friends, Gene and Finny, find themselves relying on each other as their peace shatter in the midst of war. The story starts with the narrator, Gene, visiting to Devon School, where he attends as a young man during Word War II, specifically Summer Session of 1942. Then the story jumps into his past, the years of 16, where he jumps from the tree with his best friend, Finny known as Phineas. Gene is a top notch student where Finny is the best athlete in the school. As the story progresses, Gene begins to jealous of Finny, breaking his own best friend’s leg.

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On page 196, Gene describes, “The far Common could be seen from the window of my room, and early in June I stood at the window and watched the war moving in to occupy it.” With the troops using Devon’s Far Common, and everyone graduating to be sent finally into the war, the realness of the war became apparent to Gene. A quote from the test analysis on Sparknotes.com expands on this by saying, “The novel ends on an appropriately dark note, as the war invades Devon. Although the characters have felt the war descending upon the school throughout the book, the incursion is literal this time, as soldiers set up camp on campus,” (SparkNotes Editors.) The war was something the boys had not taken seriously, but finally since it was time for them to leave Devon it became something they would have to face and deal with.

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In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knolls Gene's and Finny's friendship with one another brings out each character's virtue or true self. Gene is the smartest kid at the Devon school , and Finny is very athletic. Finny's athletic ability is what leads to the rivalry because Gene wants to be able to achieve an athletic ability like Finny. This novel tells the story in Gene's point of view of how he has grown into adulthood during World War II. The author John Knolls does not give a very good view of Finny because the story is through Gene's eyes where Gene envy's Finny.

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Leper asks Gene, “Would they bother you if you did, if you happened to keep imagining a man’s head on a woman’s body, or if sometimes the arm of a chair turned into a human arm if you looked at it too long, things like that?” This had a large impact on readers as it strikes some of the scariest, and deepest fears that we bury within society. The picture of a innocent person being completely dismantled and thrown back together changes our whole perspective on what the war really did to people. It relates back to Devon as an example of the unpreparedness of the whole school for what was to come. Although many of the boys understood their fate, they did not understand that it was something that could envelop their mind and destroy their sense of peace.

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Shoveling snow and picking apples was how Gene and his classmates did there part for the war effort. On page 92 of A Separate Peace Gene narrates “In the same way war, beginning almost humorously with announcements about maids and days spent apple-picking, commenced its invasion of the school, the early snow was commandeered as its advance guard.” This quote shows that the boys at Devon had kept the war at the back of their minds but the snow has brought the war to the forefront of their everyday thoughts.

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In John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, the main character, Gene Forrester, undergoes a traumatic journey to develop the aspects necessary for coping through adulthood. This novel is a flashback to the year of 1942, when Gene attends his final year at Devon High School, in New Hampshire. Although Gene appears to be Finny’s best friend, he follows in Finny’s steps so that his personality clones to be like Finny’s. Finny exposes new experiences that provoke Gene’s development into adulthood. As Gene engages in new experiences, he soon realizes that he envies Finny’s abilities.

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