Allusions In A Separate Peace

Transitioning from childhood to the adult world is a tough time in any adolescent's life. It is a time of discovery of one’s self and the world around them. John Knowles captures this struggle in his novel, A Separate Peace. This story follows Gene Forrester, his friend Phineas, and other boys during their senior year at the Devon School. Throughout the school year, Gene and his classmates notice changes in themselves and the way they perceive the world. There is one boy named Leper, however, seems to play a crucial role in Gene and Phineas’s self discovery of good and evil. In the novel, the author uses Leper’s character as a mirror through which Gene and Phineas’s identity is revealed to them. Through the use of biblical allusions the Genesis, Knowles creates Leper as a serpent like character who reveals the knowledge of the good and evil in Gene and Phineas. In the beginning of the story, Knowles shows Gene as a boy who is just coming to the world. He is still mostly oblivious to the truth of the world around him. The author uses Gene’s interactions with Leper at pivotal points in his life as he gains knowledge of himself and his surroundings. The most significant turning point for Gene is when when Phineas tells him, “Elwin ‘Leper’ Lepellier has announced his intention to make the leap this very

Leper’s presence at the moments during which both Gene and Phineas discover evil show Knowles intention in creating Leper as an allusion to the serpent serpent in Genesis. It is Leper who causes them to go to the tree the day Gene’s eyes are opened to the evil in himself, and it is Leper’s testimony that opens Phineas’ eyes to the evil around him. Without Leper, the two boys may never have left their childlike innocence, just as Adam and Eve may have forever stayed in the Garden of Eden if it had not been for the