Theme Of A Separate Peace Coming Of Age

In the novel A Separate Peace, there are multiple themes running through the story. The theme that affected the plot of this story the most was coming of age. All throughout the story Gene is seen growing and maturing. He makes the transition from his childhood into his adult life. This is important because it shows how his attitude and actions are affected by growing up which in turn changes and molds the plot and overall resolve and resolution of the novel. This novel, written by John Knowles take place in New Hampshire in 1942 during WW2. The beginning of the of the book fast forwards 15 years into the future where Gene (the main character of the story) is grown up and visiting his old school Devon. He is remembering both the positives and negatives of his time spent at the school with his best friend Finny. The two friends begin to develop a rivalry

Gene ends up knocking Phineas off a tree injuring him so badly that he was not able to continue playing sports. Because of this event, Gene goes through maturity and “comes of age” so to speak. In A separate Peace, the first example of coming of age is dishonesty. Dishonesty is part of the theme coming of age because people do not like accepting reality. For example, in this novel, it is stated, “it’s struck me than that I was injuring him again. It occurred to me that this could be an even deeper injury than what I had done before. I would have to back out of it, I would have to disown it,” (70). This is a coming of age quote because Gene realizes that many people in the world don’t want to accept the truth so instead of taking it to