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Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the narrator Gene, and his best friend Finny, go through ups and down of their relationship. The book starts during the summer session of the prestigious Devon school and ends during the winter session. We are able to see the lives that these boys have during, not only the war time of WWII but, also the different times of the year which affects their actions. They seem to turn off their adventurous, risk taking, rule breaking ways during the winter time, but during the summer they are very wild, and take advantage of the rules. J. Knowles, while trying to show how these boys live at the school in New England during the war time, is also able to tie in elements of setting through the antithesis of behavior …show more content…

When winter arrives the boys know it is time to step up their game and work hard. Some characters, such as Finny, don’t express this as easily as others, but the mindset is very different from the summer for everyone. Upon returning back to the winter session, the reader can see ”worn expressions and careless posture that they had never been away at all (Knowles 73)”. What this means is that everyone is more stressed and work heavy, while in the summer they are more free willed. The summer is no equivalent to the time of the winter, which is why the quote explains how “they had never been away at all (Knowles 73)”. By using the formal verbs to describe something very usual to the audience, the reader feels a mood of sympathetic …show more content…

After this, Gene seems to feel very responsible for this break. When Gene later learns that Finny will never be able to play sports again (one of the factors of what makes them “even”) the reader starts to see a merge of the two personalities. Gene begins to think that he is Phineas saying “I was Phineas, Phineas to life (Knowles 62)”. Instead of using connotative diction the author chooses to tell the reader directly how Gene feels about Finny. This quote comes directly after Gene is told that he can no longer visit Finny after his break. This shows that he

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