A Separate Peace By John Knowles: A Character Analysis

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In the modern world and in all of history we see how important evolution is to surviving. This is also seen in the novel “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, where everything has to evolve or else it perishes. Characters must change with the world around them or else they could be left behind or in danger. This theme shows up multiple times throughout the book and becomes very evident in two characters. The first example is when Finny falls out of the tree and breaks his leg. At the beginning of the book Gene and Finny start the Super Suicide Squad of the Summer Session. To start each meeting, everyone jumped off the tree limb into the river. One day Finny decides to do a tandem jump with Gene. In this moment Gene’s built up jealousy for Genes …show more content…
As we know, Leper sees the army advertisement and joins the ski troops. When Gene visits Leper after he escapes in the Christmas location he finds out he has received a Section Eight discharge. This is for mentally unstable or even crazy people who join the army. We know that Leper was not crazy before he joined the army so it had to be the army that changed Leper. Before he left Leper was a social outcast, he would ski instead of working with the boys and was metaphorically the runt of the friend group. While he explains to Gene where he is going he says, “‘Touring. It’s the way you get around the countryside in the winter. Touring skiing. It’s how you go overland in the snow.” (Pg. 94) Unfortunately Lepers evolution makes him at risk of complete social rejection and many other changes later in life. This is shown at Lepers house when Leper says, “They were going to give me a discharge, a Section Eight discharge” he continues by saying, “A section eight discharge is for all the nuts in the service, the psychos” (Pg.144). This mark is seen on permanent records so anyone can see it making it publicly known that you were deemed mentally unstable. This change of mental destabilization was a bad evolution in Lepers character causing him to be at a disadvantage for his entire
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