Maintaining A Complacent Outlook in A Separate Peace by John Knowles

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Maintaining A Complacent Outlook in A Separate Peace by John Knowles During times of struggle, many people turn to different mentalities in order to deal with the problems they face. In the case of Separate Peace, by John Knowles, this mindset is one of living in peace and harmony. The main characters, Phineas and Gene, encounter strains on their close relationship by Phineas displaying this outlook. During the novel, World War II is raging and at the peaceful Devon School for boys there is a gloom knowing that many of the students and their friends could be drafted for the war at any time. This however, does not seem to bother Finny and he attempts to continue life as normal. The dictionary defines peace as "Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations" or "Inner contentment; serenity", these two definitions strongly characterize Finny. Finny is the embodiment of peace and lives his life through out the book accordingly. Finny has such unbelievable sportsmanship that games and competitions are just all for fun to him. When the boys visit the pool, they see A. Hopkins Parker's name on the school record board for breaking the swimming record from 1940. When Finny decides to see if he can break it, he does. Gene insists on getting a coach to be witness to change Parker to Phineas, Finny refuses saying, "…I just wanted to see if I could do it. Now I know. But I don't want to do it in public." (Pg. 35) This shows how modest Finny is. Another way Finny shows sportsmanship is how he thinks that no one is ever a loser, "Finny never permitted himself to realize that when you won, they lost. That would have destroyed the perfect beauty which was sport. Nothing bad ever happened in sports; they were the absolute good" (Pg. 27) A place in the novel where Finny is displays his love for games is when he creates Blitzball although it was a game in which he shined due to its rules, so did others. The game, like all others he participates in,

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