Analysis Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

This quote supports the idea that with the death of Finny, Gene was able to think and act without enmity. Gene startsto become more like Finny by seeing the world with the same kindness and naivety as Phineas once did. Gene battles his enemy and is triumphant in his internal war. Gene achieves his inner peace,” only after fighting one’s own, private war of growing up. In this sense, the war is symbolic also of the inner struggle from adolescence to maturity” (Alton).

Facing the struggle between individualism and nationalism, he had a quest to undertake. He discovered his inner deep and in accepting that with his courage and determination, he was reborn into a new person. When he reached the comprehension and appreciation of the King’s motive of war, uniting all countries to bring peace to all people, he did not kill the King but chose to be killed by the King’s soldiers. The time when he made his decision is also when he successfully completed the Hero’s Journey. During his journey, the viewers can see the growth of Nameless from a swordsman full of hatred to a hero of his own myth.

To start, Gene’s envy and imitation of Phineas affect him in many different ways. One example of this is when Gene decides to play sports for Finny because Finny told him to. After this, Gene explains that he “lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring

There we can finally see that Gene never cared about Finny even though Finny loved him like a brother, and did no wrong to him. Only a heartless, self centered person would laugh at someone in pain especially his fallen friend. As hard as it is sometimes evil things or people can destroy good works. The novel A Separate Peace definitely has the theme of good vs evil. The many struggles between good and evil can be observed in Gene and Finny's relationship.

The “ole” Jim has been associated with the term of “runaway nigger”, whose sole purpose is to regain the freedom, despite the safety of Huck Finn; and along with that is a respect “as if he was a wonder” (24) for his magical stories from naive audiences. Evidences found in the novel have shown how Jim takes advantage of the others’ gullibility using his superstition and partly, age. For instance, how Jim would fool fellows to “give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that fiver-center piece” (which Jim claims “the devil had had his hands on it” (25)), or the way Jim tricked Huck into the prophetic hairball by telling him “it wouldn’t talk without money” (42). And the most important lie Jim has ever made to Huck was to prevent the boy from encountering his dead Pap, the mere reason Huck joins the adventure, pushing Huck into countless troubles that possibly would endanger such a young child, in exchange for a freedom that he has already owned. Eventually, all the selfishness is converted into selflessness in the moment Jim sacrifices his freedom in order to save Tom Sawyer’s life; the freedom that Jim seeks in hope for a reunion with “his wife and children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn’t ever been away from home before in his life” (268).

The character of Frankenstein is introduced as a man with an almost perfect family. However, as he grows older and begins to pursue and acquire progressively greater knowledge, his life takes a turn for the worse. This pursuit of knowledge poses no problem to Victor at first; it is only when he allows the concepts of natural philosophy to “[become] nearly [his] sole occupation” (Shelley, 29). He begins to care less and less about his family and relationships as he devotes each and every moment of his life towards his research.

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.

Towards the beginning of the novel, Finny’s strengths include his ability to stay optimistic, even after his life-threatening accident. When Finny converses with Gene afterwards, he tells Gene “Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me…” (Knowles 85). Even after being told he probably won’t have the ability to walk again, a point one could describe as the lowest and most depressing of his life, Finny maintains his zest for life.

Dickens sums up what Carton died for with a soliloquy, where he says, “I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants…I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both.” Even though Carton

Fitzgerald was very clever in the sense that he created the sad ending which tends to stamp on reader’s mind more tenaciously than happy ones. First, the novel expresses a cautious belief in the American Dream. As mentioned above, Gatsby believes lavish life will help him win the love, but ultimately, Daisy has fled with Tom. At the end of the novel, Gatsby dead, along with George and Myrtle, and only the rich alive, the novel has progressed to a charged, emotional critique of the American Dream.

Quotes are meaningful, inspirational, wise, etc. They are sayings, things that people have said. In the novel, A Separate Peace, the characters have said many psychological things in relation to who they are as characters. One of the statements of the main character and narrator, Gene, included, “My war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.”

Gene, being the person who said this, evidently does not like Phineas and it is clear that he has hatred for Phineas. The previously listed evidence truly teaches the reader a lesson that you should not act upon a small hatred within your heart; this is a very important lesson to young students in high school because sometimes a very bad thing will come from acting upon a small

Music can bring the brightest of joys that keeps us moving through our dull and boring lives. An example of this joy is Ishmael Beah’s life as a boy soldier in his book A Long Way Gone. As he tells you his story, he tells of his dance group with his friends, the times he heard music in the middle of war, and how music saved him from the madness that brewed within him. Music has the unique ability to create peace in a person’s life despite the difficulties surrounding them, and to bring a constant reminder of who they are as a person.

In John Knowles, fictional novel, A Separate Peace, he uses internal conflict to ensure the reader’s understanding of a true friendship. Gene brings Finny’s suitcase to the infirmary, and the boys finally talk about the accident. Finny is an emotional mess and begins to cry. He asks Gene, “It was just some blind impulse you had in the tree there, you didn’t know what you were doing. Was that it” (191)?

During the late 1930’s and early to mid1940’s, Allies were fighting the axis powers in WW2. Along with the high tensions amongst countries, there was also high tension amongst civilian lives. John Knowles’ A Separate Peace clearly shows the tension within a friendship similar to that of Britain’s and Germany’s relationship. Through Allegory, John Knowles shows the tension within two friends that eventually leads to their inevitable demise. The symbolic items in the book are: Gene, the main character, Finny, the deuteragonist, and Finny’s pink shirt.