In the books A Separate Peace by John Knowles and Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, both have a coming-to-age story as they grow up and experience many life lessons. Both are developed by the war and experiences they see which changes their view of the outside world. In both books the characters develop and shift, becoming their own character and having their own ideas. Both characters are developed from conflicts from other people, as they grow they change their views and see the world and their innocence disappears.
Both characters are majorly affected by the war, they both have to adapt to the war and find a way of living through it. The war is mostly an obstacle in both books in A Separate Peace Gene,
In A Separate Peace, Gene has to face injury and eventually death when Dr. Stanpole tells Gene “sports are finished for him, after an accident like that” (Knowles 63) this gives Gene a huge burden in helping Finny accept sports are done this gives Gene a new responsibility and affects his personality and behavior. However, near the end of the book a major event happens completing Gene’s maturing process Dr. Stanpole tells Gene this time that “your friend is dead” (Knowles 193) this event matures Gene and causes him experience things what most 18-year old’s don’t experience, death, the death of Finny aged Gene mentally a lot caused him to become a new person in thinking and many other things. Which is very similar to the book Farewell to Manzanar and what Jeanne experiences. Jeanne sees many things a young child should not see such as the decline of her father, the abusive nature of her father, and the grim truth of being racially different. Her father especially has a big effect on her he would only use “threats and abuse” (Houston 60) to her mom. Her father made her grow faster with all his abuse she saw and heard. It constantly haunted her when she grew up and seeing this abuse in a young age made her mentally grow and become more mature. When Jeanne went back to school she was casted out she was stereotyped. When she tried to join the Girl Scouts she was denied and was told “Gee, Jeannie, no. I’m really sorry” (Houston 144). This made Jeanne very mad inside and caused her to learn her race will forever separate
A Separate Peace shows the kind of war that exists between childhood and adulthood life. There is a significant difference in the behaviors of individuals in these two stages of life. It is a difficult task to transform from childhood to adulthood. One has to undergo a lot of changes to turn entirely to the next phase. The novel reveals that there are
The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. When looking at what makes a person who they are it becomes obvious that the struggles they have faced has influenced them dramatically. The individual will find that this development is the pure essence of what it truly means to be
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.
The evolution of a child to adult is a long and complex process. There is another transitional step that goes in the middle of these two periods. In warlike terms, such as those used in the settings of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and John Knowles's A Separate Peace, that step could be classified as being a soldier. W.N. Hodgson acknowledges this progression as well, in the poem "Before Action." The speaker begs first for God to "make [him] a soldier" (line 8) and then once he is a soldier he asks God to "make [him] a man" (16). Soldiers aren't quite children anymore; they've seen too much pain, death, and horror to maintain their innocence as children do. However, they aren't really men yet either. In A Separate Peace and All Quiet on the Western Front, the characters all go through this process of growing up, where they begin as children and proceed on to being soldiers, finally emerging as strong, insightful men by the end of the book.
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.
War always seems to have no end. A war between countries can cross the world, whether it is considered a world war or not. No one can be saved from the reaches of a violent war, not even those locked in a safe haven. War looms over all who recognize it. For some, knowing the war will be their future provides a reason for living, but for others the war represents the snatching of their lives without their consent. Every reaction to war in A Separate Peace is different, as in life. In the novel, about boys coming of age during World War II, John Knowles uses character development, negative diction, and setting to argue that war forever changes the way we see the world and forces us to mature rapidly.
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.
World War II influenced the boys in the novel A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, by making them grow and mature more quickly than they would have had there not been a war. The war makes some boys stronger and more ready for whatever life would bring, while in others it disables them to the point that they cannot handle the demands of life.
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.”
Both stories were insightful about the harsh reality of war. They give the reader a view of war. The pieces are filled with visuals and symbolism. I recommend to all readers. Has a true message in both works.
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.
Brenda Shoshanna once stated, “All conflict we experience in the world, is a conflict within our own selves.” This quote recognizes how much conflict influences our everyday lives and personality. The wise words were especially true for Gene, the main character in A separate peace, who let his battles with other characters and the society of his time become his own internal battles. In John Knowles’s novel, A separate peace, all the types of conflict are shown through the main character Gene.
Dr. Wayne Dyer once said, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” This saying is also true for the personality of Brinker Hadley, a character in A Separate Peace. In this novel, Brinker and his group of friends spend their time at Devon School making memories with exciting, yet dangerous adventures. With the idea of World War II in the back of their minds, the boys are trying to focus on the joys in life. However, a situation caused by Brinker’s questioning brings great sorrow. Brinker Hadley represents a headstrong, lawful, and perhaps misconceived character in this novel,
Is rebellion a childish act, or one that shows maturity? Many would argue the former, but others could claim that rebelling shows a person’s individuality, that they have grown as a person and are not afraid to show it off to the world. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles shows how rebelling can lead to learning from prior mistakes and how breaking free from the crowd can lead to learning who someone truly is. Gene is shown in the novel as a character that follows the rules and does what is expected of him. Finny, on the other hand, rarely follows the rules and is always going against what is expected of him. With the characters and events in A Separate Peace, Knowles shows how he supports the idea of rebellion by having unfortunate events
The lives and prosperity of millions of people depend on peace and, in turn, peace depends on treaties - fragile documents that must do more than end wars. Negotiations and peace treaties may lead to decades of cooperation during which disputes between nations are resolved without military action and economic cost, or may prolong or even intensify the grievances which provoked conflict in the first place. In 1996, as Canada and the United States celebrated their mutual boundary as the longest undefended border in the world, Greece and Turkey nearly came to blows over a rocky island so small it scarcely had space for a flagpole.1 Both territorial questions had been raised as issues in peace treaties. The Treaty of Ghent in 1815 set the framework for the resolution of Canadian-American territorial questions. The Treaty of Sevres in 1920, between the Sultan and the victorious Allies of World War I, dismantled the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and distributed its territories. Examination of the terms and consequences of the two treaties clearly establishes that a successful treaty must provide more than the absence of war.