Inner Conflict In John Knowles A Separate Peace

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A Separate Peace: Inner Conflict John Knowles utilizes different techniques and devices to create many themes in the book A Separate Peace, but the one that stands out the most is inner conflict. This theme really stands out in the characters Gene. Gene is struggling to maintain good grades while being best friends with Finny which makes Gene think that Finny is out to get him, so that Finny can be better than Gene. Gene battles with himself to be like Finny, and figures out how to make Finny less than him. This leads to a situation that Gene regrets and causes more conflict within Gene. John Knowles uses flashback, the setting, and symbolism to help portray the inner conflict that the characters possess. Gene recalls the good and bad moments that him and Finny spend together. One place that Gene had a big memory from was the tree where they held the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session. This is where they would jump off the tree, and land in the clean river. The moment that Gene plays in his head over and over was when they went to go watch Leper jump off the tree in order to join the society, but in order for him to have to do that Finny and himself would have to …show more content…
Devon sat between two rivers, one of them was clean and the other one is dirty. Gene makes Cliff Quakenbush mad by showing up late. Gene ends up punching Quakenbush in the face after Cliff called Gene a mean name. An example of this would be on page 79, “ I tried to throw him off, he lunged at the same time, and we catapulted into the water.” They fell into the dirty water which shows sin which is in Gene. Gene has sin because he was the reason Finny fell off the tree, and broke his leg. When Finny falls down the stairs he ends up with a clean break. This could mean that something bad is going to happen in the near future. Gene also feels bad about this because he was the one who made him break his leg in the first
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