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Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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John Knowles wrote the book A Separate Peace in a fictional account. The book takes place at a preparatory in New Hampshire called Devon, during World War II. Gene tells this story as he is going back to visit the school; specifically a tree and a marble staircase. Gene has a lot of friends at the school, but no are more important than Phineas. Knowles shows the conflict of man vs. society in the book when Phineas goes against the rules, when Brinker holds a trial, and when the army does not accept him.
When Phineas goes against the rules, that shows man vs. society because the school makes the rules. At one point Phineas decides he wants to go to the beach after he beats A. Hopkins Parker's school swimming record. Gene knows it was a bad idea since he has a big test the next day, however he goes anyway. Gene recalls, “The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely out of all bounds” (Knowles 27). Gene’s statement shows that going to the beach is totally against school rules. Then, Phineas goes out to eat dinner at the substitute headmaster's house. and he uses the Devon School tie as his belt for the day. Gene says, “This time he wasn’t going to get away with it. I could feel myself coming unexpectedly excited at that” (Knowles 27). This shows that he goes against the rules so much, and gets away with it …show more content…

society because all of his friends are trying to tell him what happened on the tree. As Phineas keeps acting like the war is fake and nothing really matters, Brinker is fed up with it. Brinker decides to hold a trial to confront Phineas and Gene about what had happened on the tree. Phineas says, “‘You get all your facts! You collect every f---ing fact there is in the world!”’ (Knowles 177). Phineas shows that he is fed up with the fact Brinker will not stop hounding him on when Gene pushed him. Not only does the trial show man vs. society, but Phineas not being allowed to fight in the army does as

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Point: Leper is like a blender because he is all mixed up. Evidence: After Gene’s trip to see Leper he is fully convinced he has become crazy after the frequent crying and the absurd talk between the two characters. Sadly Gene finally admits it and confirms when Brinker says “I’ll bet he cracked up, didn’t he? That’s what happened.” referring to Leper.

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Mary Fragalla Mrs. Teague Honors American Literature 10 December 2015 Reading Portfolio Assignment Author’s Background and Purpose John Knowles wrote his novel "A Separate Peace" after his memories from his years at the Phillips Exter Academy in New Hampshire. John Knowles grew up in a small town in Fairmont, West Virginia. He came from a wealthy family.

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Gene was jealous of Finny athletic achievements, careless personality, and his natural leadership. “I was starting to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn't help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little (Knowles 20)”. Gene trying to justify his ill feelings by saying its natural to be jealous.

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John Knowles, author of A Separate Peace, uses both character development and setting to support his decision in selecting the title. He uses the main characters of Gene and Phineas (Finny) and their troubled yet deeply bonded friendship as a way to illustrate the separate peace that takes place both within the boys themselves and in the friendship that is built between the two. Knowles also uses the setting of the novel to demonstrate the vast difference between the peaceful Devon School grounds and the war raging outside of the school’s walls. The title, A Separate Peace, as chosen by the author is symbolic of the main characters, Finny and Gene’s, struggle to find peace within themselves and with each other while set in a place that significantly contrasts the events of the real world.

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Which makes Gene quite an annoyance. When the doctor tells Gene and FInny that Phineas would never play sports again Gene bursts into tears, whereas Phineas tells Gene “What are you looking so sick about?”(65). Phineas understood what happened to him is horrible but frankly Gene feels worse than he does about the situation. This is because Gene is depressed, and feels completely responsible for the situation that ruined his friend’s goals for the

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Gene’s relationship with his “best friend” Phineas describes how the relationship resulted in the killing of Gene's enemy, his own youth, and innocence. Gene is plainly described in the novel as envious of Finny, he is also depicted as the position of much hatred and dismay by his peers. Therefore, the fact that Gene kills his own youth is likely considering Finny’s success, Gene’s jealousy towards

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We use fantasy to cope in many ways. We escape from reality in books, movies, and in our dreams. However, when we allow those fantasies to take more control--break into our reality-- and mask the events that we should be coping with; it becomes almost detrimental to our perception of reality itself. We begin to believe more in our imagination than reality. When that bubble of fantasy is popped, so is the peace that it had brought you in the situation.

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Since Finny cannot play sports anymore because of his broken leg, he tells Gene that he has to do it for him. Gene realizes that this is his destiny; to become an extension of Phineas. Another way he is affected is that he starts to lose his own ways by copying Finny. When Finny was in the hospital wing of the school, Gene put his clothes on and said “that I would never stumble through the confessions

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Gene becomes more and more jealous of Finny’s identity and therefore has to fight an internal battle against himself as his desire to be like Finny grows stronger and eventually leads to a tragedy. Gene is jealous of Finny because he can get away with anything. However, jealousy isn’t just a random feeling, it is a desire to obtain something that others have - sometimes no matter what the cost is. In the beginning of the novel, Finny decides to wear his pink shirt that his mom sent him, even though it was against school rules. Gene thinks that Finny is going to get in trouble for wearing a non-school uniform, but instead begins to understand that, “Phineas could get away with anything” (Knowles 25).

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A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, is an anti-war novel. Throughout it, the author describes how World War II negatively affects daily life. He describes the way in which the war steals the innocence of the schoolboys who attend Devon School. In addition, one student, Leper Lepellier, begins to think irrationally during his enlistment, and one of the main characters, Finny, even goes as far as saying that the war is fabricated. These examples exemplify why A Separate Peace is an anti-war novel in the sense that it illustrates the negative effects that war has even on people who are not directly fighting it.

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Gene believes that Finny and he hate each other, until he realizes Finny’s pureness, which Gene can not stand. At first, Gene believes that Finny wants to exceed him, and that the two are rivals. Everyone at Devon likes Finny. The teachers adore him, the students look up to him, the athletes aspire

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In Chapter One of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster points out that almost every trip in literature is a quest. The five elements to a quest are: a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials, and the real reason to go. Gene is the quester in A Separate Peace by John Knowles. He visited the Devon School, where he had been a student fifteen years before, to see two “fearful sites,” (Knowles 10). While at the school, he noticed that it looked new, which he found slightly unsettling, for “...it made the school look like a museum...”

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In the beginning of the novel, Gene returns to Devon to understand what happened in 1942. This is important because Gene seeks to console the guilt he has faced. Furthermore, Gene shows his shame after Finny was jounced off the tree. Remorse over Finny's injury ate Gene up, causing Gene to not participate in sports. Gene feels disgrace while in the infirmary thinking, "If Phineas had been sitting here in this pool of guilt...what would he have done?"

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In John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, the main character, Gene Forrester, undergoes a traumatic journey to develop the aspects necessary for coping through adulthood. This novel is a flashback to the year of 1942, when Gene attends his final year at Devon High School, in New Hampshire. Although Gene appears to be Finny’s best friend, he follows in Finny’s steps so that his personality clones to be like Finny’s. Finny exposes new experiences that provoke Gene’s development into adulthood. As Gene engages in new experiences, he soon realizes that he envies Finny’s abilities.

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A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a fictional book about Gene Forrester, a student at Devon Private Boarding School. This story takes place during the 1940s when World War II was becoming more and more a part of daily life at Devon. The war encroaches and finally dominates the lives of the boys at Devon. Starting with the boys shoveling snow off of the train tracks, then their friend, Leper, enlists, and finally troops get permanently stationed at Devon.

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