Throughout the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, there are many important things portrayed that coincide with the fact that the book is a wonderful literary piece and should be read by many students. A Separate Peace is an absolutely amazing novel and should be a required book read by every high school student because of the following: it relates to High School students, it demonstrates how hatred can turn into something very evil, and it teaches people how to forgive someone despite previous problems.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles relates very closely to students in high school because of the characters in the book being in high school and going through many of the same things that high school students do. “Like all old, good schools,
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“I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise, or because these mornings were too full of beauty for me, because I knew of too much hate to be contained in a world like this.” (Knowles 55). Early on in the novel, Gene starts to realize how much hatred there is in the world, and soon after, he realizes that there is an undying hatred within his heart and a clear enemy, Phineas. Gene and Phineas were about to jump from a tree into the water together and right before they had jumped, something terrible had happened. “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb” (Knowles 59/60). Gene, being the person who said this, evidently does not like Phineas and it is clear that he has hatred for Phineas. The previously listed evidence truly teaches the reader a lesson that you should not act upon a small hatred within your heart; this is a very important lesson to young students in high school because sometimes a very bad thing will come from acting upon a small