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Analysis Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, is an American novel that is set during World War 2 when evil was rampant. People in the war fought viscously against each other and they fought to keep their country strong. Much like the battles that were taken in europe, there is an inner battle that every human fights during their life. The boys at Devon high school were at that vital age when fighting this battle. Among of these boys who took part in this battle was Gene Forrester, the narrator of the story. The story tells the reader about Gene’s and his best friend, Phineas’ friendship and how their friendship started a war against Gene’s innocence. Therefore Gene’s ultimate enemy is not Finny (Phineas’ nickname) nor the Germans of World War 2 but rather his “own youth, the innocence that burns too hotly to be endured.” …show more content…

Gene is unable to understand that it’s natural for a human to have bad feelings like jealousy towards another person. “I found it. I found a single sustaining thought. The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. . . . We were even after all, even in enmity. The deadly rivalry was on both sides after all,” (page 24). Gene thinks that as much as he is envy of Finny’s athleticism, Finny too is jealous of Gene’s intellectual achievements. When Gene starts to feel bad feelings towards Finny for the first time, he acts childish, therefore his battle begins with his

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A Separate Peace is a novel written by John Knowles that revolves around Gene Forrester, and his friend Phineas. The novel takes place during World War II at a boarding school called Devon in New Hampshire. While on the tree limb, Gene jounced the limb they were standing on and caused Finny to fall off and break his leg. A mock trial occurred and Gene is accused of purposefully jouncing the limb causing Finny to fall and break his leg. During this mock trial, Finny refuses to believe that Gene jounced the limb on purpose and rushes out of the room.

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A Separate Peace, Unit Test Hamza Eldohiri The story “A Separate Peace”, written by John Knowles, was written at the time and takes place during World War II when battles and conflicts amongst nations were evident. Each nation involved struggled and fought their hardest in order to satisfy the good of their nation. Not only is the setting in the story taking place during this time of quarrel, the story also demonstrates areas of self-conflict and an internal battle throughout. The characters in “A Separate Peace”, are described as experiencing this self-conflicting, internal battle. Gene (also the narrator) is specifically depicted as he goes through his battle in life.

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My Separate Peace “Envy is Ignorance; imitation is suicide” (370). A Separate Peace written by John Knowles took place at Devon school in 1942. Knowles depicts Gene progress from innocence to experience by creating a character that is at war within himself and finding himself in through this war . A Separate Peace illustrates how Genes’s envy and imitation affects him, his relationship with Finny and Gene’s achievement with finding peace. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affected him; Gene’s imitation affected him by making him a follower of Finny, Knowles states, “ What was I doing up here anyway?

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He envy’s Finny’s success, get angry because he feels Finny is trying to kill his studies, and fears that Finny will outshine him. Gene becomes his own enemy. “Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there” (Knowles 196). Gene was taken over by a mindless impulse. He believes that after Phineas’ death, he was able to overcome that very

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A Separate Peace, Written by John Knowles tells the fictional story of a young man by the name of Gene. Throughout the novel, World War Two plays a very interesting role in the life of the main character. In the beginning the war has almost little to no importance to the characters of this book, however as the novel progresses the importance of the war envelopes the characters; when comparing the start to then end it can bee seen how the war slowly but surely dominates their lives. At the start of the novel, WWll is mentioned very rarely, and is of little importance to the characters. For example: The tree Finny breaks his leg on is mentioned to be used for military training, however this means very little to them.

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Without forgiveness, Gene would still be living in fear and hate, buried by his burden. Gene learns tremendously from his experiences. All his enemies were imagined, there was no need for “Maginot Lines” to protect himself from an enemy that didn’t exist. After Finny’s funeral Gene becomes “Phineas-filled” and his “war is over before it ever begins.” Gene realizes, “I was ready for the war, now that I no longer had any hatred to contribute to it.

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“Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time of school; I killed my enemy there” (Knowles, 204). A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, was taken place at Devon High in the mid 1940’s, in the New England area during WWII. The main character, Gene, is a very smart, but envious and imitative kid that returns back to his school later in life to find peace within himself and past conflicts. Gene’s envious and imitative actions have had many affects within himself, others, and his future, but has found peace throughout everything. Gene’s envy and imitation of Finny affects him a lot throughout the novel.

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Throughout the novel, If Beale Street Could Talk, written by James Baldwin, there is a common theme of corruption of the police and the racism against African-Americans in the criminal justice system. The main character Fonny, is accused multiple times of crimes he did not commit and because of this, his fate cannot be determined and he slowly loses hope for himself. The way that Baldwin writes this novel shows how much African-Americans suffered even after the civil rights movements in America. Fonny is wrongfully arrested and charged with rape as a result of the corruption of the police. For example, he was not even in the same area as where the rape was supposedly committed and when they did the police lineup he was the only African-American, which proves that there was

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In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene returns to his school when he is an adult and narrates the story of his life at Devon school. When he returns to school he remembers the tree that is the reason Finny’s leg gets broken, and the hard marble stairs. Gene is a charismatic and talented in sports, while Gene is book smart. Beccause Gene is not better at sports than Finny he feels the need to compete with him at everything.

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“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.

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Gene comes of age through his understanding of the difficult challenges in his youth. Gene’s jealousy towards Finny’s perfect personality causes him to have childish emotions, such as resentment. Gene Forrester constantly battles within himself clashing emotions, specifically, hate and envy, towards Phineas. Since he strives to be like Finny, Gene does everything in his power to shove down his feelings of hatred and jealousy. After Finny beat the school swimming record, Gene suspiciously asks himself why Finny did not want him to share the news with anyone else.

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War: Its Effects, and Disguises Every person can be a veteran of war at times, even if it is in personal battles rather than literal war. This is the case for the Gene as well as Finny in John Knowles 's A Separate Peace. The significance of the contrast of internal conflict with external conflict highlights Gene 's multiple conflicts with himself as well as Finny, building internal and external conflict through both characters. Ultimately, Gene becomes a veteran in the literal and figurative sense of war, regardless of uniform. Gene 's victory in this war with himself portrays how war can prevail in and out of uniform.

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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 a required book to be read by many students. The main characters Phineas or Finny, an athletic and caring young man, and Gene Forrester, an intelligent student at Devon with an undying hatred within himself, are very similar to a vast majority of high school 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

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Charles Kuralt once said, “ The love of family and the admirations of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.” This quote shows how jealousy and popularity aren’t as important as relationships in your life. In the book, A Separate Peace, Gene has different priorities than relationships. Gene, a young boy who attends Devon boarding school, goes through many different trials along his grade school journey. He faces problems with friends and school life during the time of World War two and the draft being in full swing.

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In an attempt to understand humans and how they behave psychologists have developed theories that seek to explain this. Social learning theory fathered by Albert Bandura 1971 proposes that humans learn from each other and from their environment. Bandura believes that children learn from adults –models. Similarly Lawrence Kohlberg in his theory on Moral development seeks to prove this very notion. Pre-convention Morality, Conventional Morality and Post- conventional Morality form the bases of Moral Development Theory.

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