Figurative Language In A Separate Peace

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Y.B Yeats, a well-known poet wrote, “Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild/With a faery, hand in hand, for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand” (Y.B Yeats). Yeats writes a rather beautiful piece on a bleak topic - the loss of innocence. Likewise, throughout John Knowles’s A Separate Peace, losing one’s innocence is openly discussed between the characters and is hinted at constantly through the many situations the author creates within the book. The students at Devon are burdened with the task of growing out of adolescence during a war, and for some, this causes them to lose their innocence sooner than needed. The wartime setting in the novel causes them to begin to question their identities and who they will …show more content…
This figurative language present in the text allows for the theme of loss of innocence and needed maturation to become an adult and lower conflict to be relevant. Gene and Finny’s contrasting characters shows conflict between them due to Gene’s loss of innocence and Finny’s inability to lose his innocence and mature. The difference through diction of Devon and the outside world shows how Devon protects innocence and how maturation is needed in the outside world to survive. The Naguamsett River and the Devon River’s symbolism shows that in adulthood a loss of innocence is necessary that innocence cannot be preserved without causing conflict. The significance of the these point is to convey an overall theme that applies to human nature in general, which is that losing innocence and maturation is key to moving out of adolescence and becoming an adult without constantly having and creating conflict. Losing one’s innocence is difficult, and it is natural to shy away from the impending pressures of adult life, however as Y.B Yeats conveys through his poetry, without maturation and loss of innocence, the harsh reality of the world would remain hidden life’s conflicts would
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