A Separate Peace Literary Devices

In John Knowles novel, A Separate Peace, he used many literary devices and techniques to bring across a major theme of the book, friendship. Without all of these literary techniques, the novel would have been a mundane and bland read, but instead, he turned the book into an exciting adventure of two friends full of underlying meaning. The first major technique he used is the symbolization of weather, as every season represented something new and different. Mr. Knowles also used the approach of a first person point of view, in which Gene narrated the entire story as a flashback. Lastly, the characterization used by Gene of Phineas show how greatly Gene believed Phineas was in a sense, his idol, whether he like it or not. Throughout the entire

Knowles characterizes Phineas, whether it be something Finny says, or Gene thinks. These characterizations show the real and deep feelings of friendship they have for one another, even though the two of them do not always fully understand it. In chapter eight, Phineas is talking about how the winter loves him, but is actually using the winter to symbolize Gene and how he feels about him. “... and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.”(Knowles, pg.110) In this part of the story, Phineas is trying to relay to Gene that no matter how much he might try and push him away, he will always love him, and that eventually Gene will learn to love him. Another example of the friendship between Gene and Phineas is when Phineas boldly states that Gene is his best friend. “Exposing a sincere emotion nakedly like that at the Devon School was the next thing to suicide.”(Knowles, pg.48) By having this thought, Gene gives Phineas’ the daring characteristic of stating exactly how he feels, no matter what the feeling or circumstance is. This once again shows how genuinely Phineas cares for Gene, and brings out the true theme of