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The theme of a separate peace
Friendship as the main theme in a separate peace
A literary analysis of a separate peace: a novel of conflicts
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Can one live in the illusion they create for themselves in an attempt to escape the realities of their life choices? The book, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, is a novel narrated by a character named Gene. In the novel Gene struggles with the memory of him causing his best friend Finny to fall from a tree. This fall ruins Finny athletic future, however Finny is unaware that Gene caused his fall. Throughout the story Gene struggles with whether or not he should confess to Finny. Although confessing to Finny would have deeply hurt him, Gene should have confessed because it would have cleared his conscious, it would have made Finny accept reality, and Finny would never have died.
Although unveiling the truth to Finny would have made Gene feel better, it would have deeply upset Finny. At one point Gene does attempt to confess to Finny. However Finny instantly rejects his confession by saying "Of course you didn't do it. You damn fool. Sit down, you damn fool."(70) This only increases Gene's doubt about whether or not he should confess. When he tried to confess he saw instantly how mu...
A Separate Peace is a coming of age novel in which Gene, the main character, revisits his high school and his traumatic teen years. When Gene was a teen-ager his best friend and roommate Phineas (Finny) was the star athlete of the school.
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.
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true” (Kierkegaard)- Misleading oneself by accepting things as true or valid when they are not is a common phenomenon of nearly every human being, especially when faced with life changing of threatening situations. Self-deception can therefore be considered an option to escape reality in order to prevent oneself from dealing with the weight of a situation. Basically, those strong influencing psychological forces keep us from acknowledging a threatening situation or truth. However, oftentimes people do not realize that they are deceiving themselves, for it is mostly the action of the subconscious mind to protect especially the psychological well- being. This psychological state is depicted and in Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. He shows that people try to escape reality and seek refuge in self-deception when confronted with life-threatening situations, through characterization, alternate point of view, and the fluidity of time.
A Separate Peace is a coming-of-age novel about two boys at boarding school and their friendship during World War II. There are three significant scenes of violence that occur in the novel; however, the core of the plot is based upon one. The first and most poignant is the incident where Gene, the narrator, jiggles the tree branch while he and Phineas, his best friend, are preparing to jump, causing Phineas to fall and break his leg. The next scene of violence is when Quackenbush calls Gene a lame and Gene pushes him into the water. Lastly, Gene pushes Leper out of his chair while visiting him after he is accused of causing Phineas’ injury. All of these occurrences contribute to the overall meaning of the work.
The literary analysis essay for A Separate Peace entitled Chapter 7: After the Fall notes that Gene’s brawl with Cliff Quackenbush occurs for two reasons: the first reason being that Gene was fighting to defend Finny, and the second reason being that Quackenbush is the antithesis of Finny. Cliff Quackenbush calls Gene a “maimed son-of-a-bitch”, since Gene holds a position on the team that is usually reserved for physically disabled students, and Gene reacts by hitting him in the face (Knowles, 79). At first, Gene remarks that he didn’t know why he reacted this way, then he says, “it was almost as though I were maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me”, referring to Finny (Knowles, 79). Quackenbush is “the adult world of punitive authority personified”, his voice mature, his convictions militaristic (Chapter, 76). Quackenbush reminds Gene of the adult world and all of the things that Finny and Devon protected him from, such as war.
Throughout the novel, A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles conveys many messages of symbolism. The symbolism can be found in an array of ways, ranging from internal war, to the theme of human aggression, and a variety of religious principles. The main characters, Gene and Phineas, and their story could be paralleled to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. The similarities can be seen in the way in which in both of the stories, everyone is living in perfect harmony and peace until something comes along to disrupt it. Also in how the main characters do something out of jealousy, greed, and selfishness; and in addition, how Finny's fall out of a tree relates to the “Fall of Mankind.”
As the effects of Gene's spiteful feelings toward Finny are developed, the Assembly Hall in which Gene's trial takes place is symbolic. Brinker, a classmate, leads some of Gene's peers to bring him to the Assembly Hall. At this time, Gene further realizes that he shook the limb on purpose, which causes Finny to fall out of the tree. Gene's peers are beginning to doubt his innocence. Finny has a burst of anger at the end of Gene's trial in the Assembly Hall. During this outburst, Finny says; "I just don't care. Nevermind" (168). Finny's outburst causes his second injury, which is rooted in Gene's spitefulness towards him. Gene's feelings and their effects are linked together by the Assembly Hall. Finny's anger toward the events of the trial eventually leads to his own death as he storms out into the corridor.
In John Knowle’s, A Separate Peace, there is a transformation in all the key elements in the book, from the rivers to the tree to the seasons to the characters. The transformation is specifically seen in Leper, Gene, and Phineas. These three young men experience a change not just because of the transitions through adolescence. These changes also come about because of the war, the school, and an injury.
The story is concerned with the conflict between his conception of himself and the reality.
In John Knowles novel A Separate Peace the quote "Everything has to evolve or else it perishes" (125), serves as a realization that instead of dwelling in the past, everything needs to move forward or else it will be left behind to be forgotten. This quote refers to the boys. Throughout the book they have to be able to deal with all that is thrown at them including all of the changes that are occurring during the war. Each boy has evolved in some way. Gene is finally learning to except his emotions, Finny is admitting the bad, and Leper the person you would least expect to be in the war joined the war.
“I found it. I found a single sustaining thought. The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. . . . I felt better. Yes, I sensed it like the sweat of relief when nausea passes away; I felt better. We were even after all, even in enmity. The deadly rivalry was on both sides after all.”
Denial, the defense mechanism of the previously ignorant, buries problems beneath lies, which only allows them to grow at unbeknownst to others. With it's presence, the evaded issues multiply at alarming rates, problems that can be avoided with simple acknowledgment. Naive and desperate, Phineas, a character from the novel A Separate Peace, consistently demonstrates the quality of denial through his actions pertaining to his friendship with Gene, his best friend. Finny suppresses his knowledge of his friend's jealousy in favor of believing that their fraying friendship provides a haven towards both boys. By portraying Phineas as one who avoids conspicuous issues, The author, John Knowles, teaches the importance of acknowledging core troubles,
John Knowles writes a compelling realistic fiction about the lives of two teenage boys throughout the start of World War II in his novel A Separate Peace. Peter Yates the director of the movie plays the story out in a well organized theatrical manner. There are similarities and differences in these two works of art. However; there are also similarities.
... that all of the examples of denial of truth in the book end with the character in question facing a total attitude change. Leper becomes partially insane and much more assertive. Gene understands his feelings much better and is a changed person. It is like when Finny died some of his serenity entered Gene. Because he denied the war’s existence, Finny caused Gene to stay away from all their other friends (Brinker, Chet, etc.) and only talk to him. With Finny’s denying evil in other people it is a little bit more complicated. With each successive fall, it was like Finny’s character fell too. For example, after the first fall, the bitterness in Finny was shown and he also knowingly lies to Gene about the war. After the second fall, however, there is a bigger difference. He attempts to hide his pain at the ‘trial’, but after falling again, he can no longer mask his anger with Gene, and shows this when Gene comes to visit him in the night. He tries to attack Gene, but cannot get out of his bed to get near him. Finny has ‘fallen’ from his state of perfection and is like a normal person. He does show, however, that he still has the ability to forgive when he sees Gene for the last time.
“…It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart.”