The Ramifications of War
War always changes individuals, both citizens on the home front of their home country or soldiers actually fighting in the war. Specifically, World War II negatively impacted all of the persons in the United States. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles utilizes the setting of World War II at the Devon School to show how the war affects people. Knowles uses the characterization of the students to show the early onset of manhood, the change of the character of Leper Lepellier, and the inner conflict of Gene and Finny to prove that the idea of the war itself negatively transforms individuals.
Knowles uses the idea of war to show the sudden maturity and growing up to adulthood for the high school aged boys that are enrolled
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Even though he is sixteen at the time, he is already thinking about going to war and becoming a man. The average teenager should not be fantasizing about going to war, he should be concerned with having fun and enjoying childhood. Later on in the chapter, the boys got in some trouble from jumping off the tree. When asked by an administration member of the school asks the boys to explain themselves, Phineas replies that they “had to do that, naturally, … because we’re getting ready for the war. What if they lower the draft age to seventeen? … It’s all a question of birthdays” (Knowles 22). Phineas and Gene are worried about and want to lower the draftable age down to seventeen, so that they can be drafted into the armed forces sooner. “Naturally” because of this symbol of the war, they had to jump off the tree and all they want to do is be apart of it. All that these high school boys are looking forward to is going to war and are not appreciating childhood, they are looking forward to adulthood. However, it is inevitable for youths to grow up into adulthood and because of the setting and the symbol of war, it accelerates the maturing students at the Devon School. According to James Mellard, an …show more content…
In the beginning of the novel, Finny brings up that Gene has the opportunity to beat Chet Douglas for being top in the class. Gene asks Phineas if he would be okay if Gene would be head of the class. Phineas replies jokingly “[giving Gene] that half smile of his, which had won him a thousand conflicts. ‘I’d kill myself out of jealous envy.’ I believed him. The joking was a matter of a screen; I believed him” (Knowles 52). In Gene’s mind, Phineas can not stand Gene being better than him at anything. Gene believes that Phineas is jealous because Phineas gives Gene a “half smile”, one that he uses to lie when he is in trouble. It exemplifies the rivalry that they have with each other, that the war has created. It appears that both of them are best friends with each other, but in reality, there is a huge competition of who can be better. They have this jealousy for each other because they want to out do each other and contribute more to the war effort than each other and eventually become a better soldier than the other. Also, Gene is very childish and only shows up to the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session’s meetings because he does not want Phineas to be better or beat him in anything. Gene does not want Phineas “to excel [him] in this, even though [he] knew that it didn’t matter whether [Phineas] had
Nothing in life is permanent, everything one day will have to change. A basic necessity of life, change is the fuel that keeps our society moving. In the novel Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain, a fourteen-year-old boy gifted in craftsmanship, experiences changes in all aspects of his life. From a crippled hand to fighting against the British for his country's independence, war transforms Johnny Tremain from a selfish child into a patriotic hero. As the war relentlessly continues, Johnny learns the effects that it has on him as he must focus on the real issue rather than centering around his individual concerns. By reading this novel, we can learn from Johnny how in times of conflict, young men like him must mature into men who
The summer and winter sessions symbolized Gene’s loss of innocence. During the summer sessions, the boys of Devon were carefree and showed no respect for the rules, while the teachers put no effort into enforcing the rules. “This was the way the masters tended to treat us that summer,” (Knowles 23). Together, Gene and Finny formed the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session. The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session represented the freedom and naiveté of the summer. Unlike the summer, the winter session was defined by rules and discipline; the teachers now enforced the rules unlike the summer. The fight that occurred between Gene and Quackenbush set the tone for the winter session. “I had never been in it before; it seemed inappropriate that my baptism had taken place in the first day of the winter session and that I had been thrown into it, in the middle of a fight,” (Knowles 86). Gene’s transformation began with the summer and winter sessions.
Friendship is a necessity throughout life whether it is during elementary school or during adulthood. Some friendships may last a while and some may last for a year; it depends on the strength of the bond and trust between the two people. In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the main characters, Gene and Finny, did not have a pure friendship because it was driven by envy and jealousy, they did not feel the same way towards each other and they did not accurately understand each other.
At the beginning of the literary criticism, it discusses how the book, A Separate Peace, began growing in popularity through the 1900’s. The book was first published by Secker and Wanderburg in London, England (Alton). Its sales drastically went up after it won the William Faulkner Foundation Award (Alton). After that, many teachers wanted A Separate peace to replace the classic, Catcher and the Rye, due to the profanity found in the latter (Alton). After that, the various authors in the literary criticism discuss the praises and criticisms they have of the plot and characters in A Separate Peace. The first praise comes from David Holborn. He discusses how the flashback technique used at the beginning of the novel helps draw the reader
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion. It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) A Separate Peace (1959) written by John Knowles, expresses the true struggle to respect ones individuality. In 1942 at a private school in New Hampshire Gene Forrester became good friends with his roommate, Finny. He envies Finny for his great Athletic ability. In spite of the envy, Gene and Finny do everything together and one day for fun they decide to jump out of a tree into the river. After that they form the Super Suicide Society, the first time they jumped being their reason for formation. During one of their meetings they decide to jump off at the same time. When they get up on the limb Gene bounces it and Finny falls on the bank. He shatters the bones in his leg and will never again play sports. Nobody realizes that Gene deliberately made Finny lose his balance. Because of the accident Gene does not play sports either and continues being friends with Finny. One night, some of the other guys from Devon School woke Gene and Finny up in the middle of the night. They are suspicious of the "accident." They conduct a trial to blame Gene for what has happened to Finny. Eventually Finny gets upset in the midst of argument and runs out. He ends up tripping and falling down the stairs, and breaking his healed leg allover again. It was a cleaner break this time but they still have to set it. Gene confesses to Finny that he bounced him out of the tree. While setting the break there are complications and Finny dies. Gene learns that he is his own person and now that Finny is gone he can finally be content with himself. In the beginning Gene feels inferior to Finny.
The main character in my book, A Separate Peace, is Gene Forrester. At the beginning of the book, Gene is an innocent boy, going along with everything his roommate, the outgoing and energetic Phineas, says. “What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into doing stupid things like this?” (17) During this scene in the book, Gene is questioning his decision to jump out of a very tall tree, which he was convinced to climb by Phineas. As the story continues, Gene starts to believe that Phineas is trying to sabotage him. He thinks that Phineas is doing this so that he can be better at everything. However, in reality, Phineas is honestly just trying to have fun with Gene. “You and Phineas are even already… You did hate him for beating that school swimming record, but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term. You would have had an A except for him… Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies!” (53) After this realization, Gene is bitter toward Phineas. When the chance arrives, Gene takes it. Furious and not thinking, Gene knocks Phineas out of the tree they are both standing in. “And then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me… and then he tumbled sideways.” (60) After this incident, Gene feels incredibly guilty. He tries to confess to Phineas, but Finny just thinks he is crazy. He really believes that he just slipped and fell. Finally, Phineas realizes the truth and becomes furious with Gene. However, when he runs away from Gene on his already broken leg, he falls and causes another fracture. “Then these separate sounds collided into the general tumult of his body falling clumsily down the white marble steps.” (177) While ...
In A Separate Peace, John Knowles demonstrates how the boys’ “separate peace” has underlying war imagery through their symbols and behavior.
A strong sense of self, in the words of William Shakespeare, is “To know what we are, but not what we might be.” In the book, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the main character, Gene, ¬¬struggled with having a strong sense of self. His lack of identity negatively affected his life. The major consequence of his absent sense of self was his burning envy and hatred toward his extremely athletically gifted friend Finny. Gene’s lack of identity and hatred toward Finny led him to shake a limb if a tree that Finny was climbing. Finny fell and broke his leg. He later died when the bone marrow escaped into his blood. Gene’s behavior caused Finny’s death but there is reason to believe that Finny would have died anyway. For example, Finny could have been killed in the army, Finny’s lack of caution caused him to break his leg again, and the branch would have broken since it was already weak causing Finny to fall and die.
War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.
Thinking that the war was just an ideal character. Convincing the reader to believe the boys didn't know the risk they were taking by being in this war. They way the boys viewed it, shows that, true their are some hard times in wars, but their minds are young and they thought it was just another thing to talk about. When they should have been taking things more serious, but thinking about the good parts helped them to keep a hold on their sanity. "They ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress to the future", was the beliefs of the boys after their friend Behn dies. Their generation thought that the authorities were going to look after, and take care of them, the authorities were thought of real highly by them. Until their friend passed away, then everything changed. "We had to realize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs", this is where they came to reality that, everybody was taking care of their selves, and didn't want anything to do with other peoples problems.
...s, demonstrated through the author's talent, are denouncing the authority figures who were supposed to guide his generation into adulthood but instead turned the youth against each other in the pursuit of superficial ideals. The soldiers were simply the victims of a meaningless war.
Power, the perception of superiority over another human, is the source of many conflicts between people. Feeling inferior causes people to act beyond their normal personality. John Knowles strongly demonstrates this point in his work, A Separate Peace. In the relationship between Finny and Gene, Gene sets himself up to be inferior in the balance of power which motivates him to act irrationally to take power back from Finny.
In the book, Phineas is a very outgoing character who plays by his own rules. He does not care about what other people think about him and is very good at charming his teachers. Neil also has these characteristics, he is a leading figure to the other boys in his friend group and does not let anyone defy him, not even his father. A big similarity between these two characters is the fact that they both was to form prohibited societies. Phineas forms the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session. He makes the rule that him and Gene must always jump from the tree into the lake before every meeting. If one of their friends wanted to become a member, they too had to jump from the tree (page 31). Neil reformed the Dead Poets Society, originally formed by their teacher, Mr. Keating. Both Neil and Phineas knew that if they were caught they’d be in trouble, but this did not stop them. In both stories, these characters passions are taking away from them and they respond in similar ways. When Phineas broke his leg, he could no longer play sports. Playing sports was his passion and since he could no longer play, he told Gene “…if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me…” (page 85). Neil loved acting, but his father wanted him to go to medical school to be a doctor. After Neil stars in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, his father tells him he’s enlisting into a medical school and can no longer participate in acting. This was Neil’s passion, and because he knew his father would never let him continue, he killed
It is apparent that during war time emotions are checked at the door and ones whole psyche is altered. It is very difficult to say what the root causes of this are due to the many variables that take play in war, from death of civilians to the death of friends. However, in "Enemies" and "Friends" we see a great development among characters that would not be seen anywhere else. Although relying on each other to survive, manipulation, and physical and emotional struggle are used by characters to fight there own inter psychological wars. Thus, the ultimate response to these factors is the loss and gain of maturity among Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk.
The Struggles in life is something everyone is faced with whether it is physical, emotional mental or personal struggles. These struggles are capable of shaping an individual’s personality and outlook on life. Timothy Findley’s novel The Wars, shows that struggles lead to the character’s ultimate inner struggles, outer struggles and self-discovery. War exists in a person’s physical and psychological aspects. In The Wars, Robert Ross goes to war and fights a personal and physical battle.