Examples Of Loss Of Innocence In A Separate Peace

Inevitable Loss of Innocence

In A Separate Peace, John Knowles highlights the life of the boys at boarding school when they lose their innocence. Gene, Leper and Finny are some of the boys who have to face the reality of the world. The boys live lives of convenience up until this school year, but now they are going through changes and are now expected to take on more responsibility as young adults. They are now being pushed to make decisions that will affect themselves and others for the rest of their lives. Throughout this text, Knowles uses Gene, Leper, and Finny to portray that the loss of innocence is unavoidable. Gene’s loss of innocence leads to a chain reaction that results in

World War II is developing, and many things in the boys’ life were different because of it. For example, food is being rationed, teachers were less strict, and recruiting agents were to coming to see if the boys want to join the army. Leper is one of Finny and Gene’s good friends. When Gene and Finny heard that Leper is joining the army, they could not believe it because Leper is the last person they would ever believe would join the army. He did eventually come back home, but he had to sneak out of the military. Gene meets with Leper when his home to learn he was classified as insane: “they were going to give me a section 8 discharge… A Section Eight discharge is for the nuts in the service, the psychos, the Funny Farm candidates,” (144). A recruiting agent comes to a show a video of the military hard at work. The video was of men skiing down a mountain.This video was a form of propaganda that appealed to the innocence that Leper still had. This video did not accurately portray life in the army, and when he comes back from the war his innocence had been taken from him abruptly. He loses his innocence very unnaturally. In conclusion, the progressive war is one of the forces that pushes the boys into adulthood, and out of their innocent

Finny is pushed off a tree by his own best friend, Gene. Because of this event, Finny’s leg is greatly injured. Finny and Gene have always been good friends, so Finny automatically assumes that he must have slipped or stumbled. Finny would have never guessed that Gene was to blame for his fall. Gene started to feel truly guilty for what he had done. He could not handle the pain of holding it in anymore and decided to tell Finny what had actually happened to him. Gene exposes the truth but Finny denies it: “Of course you didn't do it. You damn fool. Sit down, you damn fool,” (70). Finny immediately refuses to believe that could be possible. He is trying to keep his innocence subconsciously because he is not ready to hear the truth. He is not ready to hear that his best friend, one of the people he trusts most in the world, purposely hurt him. Finny holds onto his innocence with all that he has. Finny soon has another opportunity to see the truth. Many boys begin to believe that Gene was responsible for Finny’s injury. They decide to hold a mock trial for Finny and Gene so that the truth will finally be brought to light. They brought Finny and Gene in. They continue to question Gene until Finny would realize that Gene did push him off the tree. Once they realize that would not get anywhere with Gene, they call Leper to the stand to prove