A Brief Review Of John Knowles A Separate Peace

“This liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943 , the escape we had concocted , this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace” (Knowles 128). A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a literary work that teaches many lessons throughout the work. Knowles describes an old high school called Devon as a museum like because of the changes that have been made. In the story, there’s a student named Gene. Gene is one of the main characters in the novel, he’s very intelligent and smart but also an envious conformist. Through these bittersweet high school moments he has finally found peace .A Separate peace represents how conformity can affect a person, affect their friendships, and their inner peace. Gene’s jealousy

One way, this has altered him is he tries to act more like Finny and in reality there nothing alike. Finny is a star athlete, doesn’t really care about studies, and gets away with everything; Gene on the other hand is a well-educated student who uses his free time to study. ”There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide” (Emerson 370). This quote explains that Gene is committing suicide to his own personality trying to recreate his self. Another way, Gene was affected was his loyalty to conform to Finny.” Why did I let finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?” This quote reveals that Gene feels the need to conform to Finny. Gene let Finny talk him into things he doesn’t want to do .Knowles has shown that Gene changes his opinions to adjust to Finny‘s likings. Gene’s “pang of envy” affects not just his but also his relationship with Finny. Gene believed Finny was trying to sabotage his studies, because of the previous day Finny and gene went to the beach and slept there, they got up the next morning to find they were late; Gene failed his quiz. “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my

Gene takes it offensive and began to dislike Finny for it .Gene’s hatred towards Finny at the time caused him to push Finny out the tree. “It was just some kind of blind impulse you had in the tree there…It wasn’t anything you really felt against me it wasn’t me it wasn’t same kind of hate you’ve felt all along .It wasn’t anything personal” (Knowles 183).All the anger and jealousy gene had built up lead to him killing Finny. This accident caused Gene to see his own potential. Gene had achieved peace. His separation from finny allowed him to do things for his own self such as think. According to “An Overview of a Separate Peace “,” He reaches this atmosphere only after separating himself from Phineas and finding his own identity” (Alton).When finny dies Gene notices his significance of his self in school and in life. Another reason is that he enlists in the war. Before he died, Finny enlisted into every branch he could and no one accepted him. “War were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wards were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart” (Knowles 193). War causes death and conflict, which is what happened in Finny and Gene’s case. “The war is a symbolic inner struggle from