Analysis Of John Knowles 'A Separate Peace'

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John Knowles’ semi-autobiographical novel A Separate Peace explores how everything, including characters, must evolve or perish. Set in the Devon School (an exclusive New England prep. school) during World War II, the novel tells the story of the first-person narrator Gene Forrester and his best friend Finny. Knowles relates the struggles of the characters to figure out how they will find their place in a world at war. It also reveals the internal conflict all people face as they age. Thus, A Separate Peace shows that the way the characters deal with change determines their fate. In the novel, Phineas refuses to believe that Gene “jounced the limb” (60) causing him to fall and break his leg on multiple occasions. The first time Finny rejects …show more content…
After Gene caused Phineas to fall out of the tree Gene tried to clear his mind of what he did, “I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was.” (62) Gene eventually abandoned the idea of keeping his actions a secret and decided to come clean to Finny because “he (Finny) would have told me (Gene) the truth.” (66) Gene didn’t get the chance to tell Finny before he was sent away by Dr. Stanpole, but he took the first step in evolving into a trustworthy person. Gene finally tells Finny the truth while visiting Phineas at his home in Boston. In his attempt to make amends with Phineas, he agrees to let Finny train him for the 1944 Olympic Games. Even though Gene knows “there isn’t going to be any Olympics in ‘44” (117)he realizes that he took Finny’s chance of being in them away when he broke his leg, so he agrees just to make Finny happy. With Gene’s willingness to change and accept the things that had happened, it allowed him evolve as a person, thus resulting in his survival. John Knowles uses his two main characters, Phineas and Gene, in his novel A Separate Peace to demonstrate that “everything has to evolve or else it perishes” (125) Phineas causes his own expiry by refusing to accept the truth and change, and Gene ensures his own survival by evolving into a kind and trustworthy person by changing how he thought and how he
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