Summary Of The Novel 'A Separate Peace' By John Knowles

Since the dawn of humans, conflict has been present. Conflict existed in the struggle for primal needs such as food, water, and mates: When there are only enough resources for one person, conflict is inevitable. However, others can argue that not all conflict is due to necessary natural competition. In his novel A Separate Peace, John Knowles explores the idea of self-incited conflict. Knowles depicts the destructive internal conflict that almost everybody creates for themselves through the struggles of the characters Gene, Leper, and Phineas.

Firstly, Gene struggles with finding his own identity while living in the shadow of his best friend Phineas. For example, early on in the story Gene thinks that he and Phineas are in some sort of competition

Leper demonstrates that he is aware of the need for change when he says, “Everything has to evolve or else it perishes” (125). Leper uses this justification to convince him to enlist in the army with the mindset that he needs to change. However, once he joins the army, Leper is confronted with overwhelming need for change and this causes him much strife. He says about his camp, “There was food like the kind we throw out here, and all my clothes were gone and I got this uniform that didn't even smell familiar” (149). Leper enjoyed entertaining the idea of change but when he was actually immersed the new surroundings he was unable to cope with the unfamiliar situation. Eventually this shock of being in an unfamiliar situation leads Leper to hallucinating that, “[the Corporal’s face] kept changing into faces I knew from somewhere else, and then I began to think he looked like me, and then he...changed into a woman” (150). Dreams and hallucinations due to insomnia often illustrate subconscious emotions: The fact that Leper thought that people’s faces were transforming solidifies Leper’s fear of change. Leper has self-created conflict with adapting to new situations and change in general is a perfect example of an internal conflict that led to the individual’s

One prime instance of Phineas needs to avoid conflict at all costs is his creation of blitzball and the snowball fight. In blitzball, there are no teams and no one wins or loses. In the snowball fight, what starts as teams eventually evolves into every man for himself. In both games, there are now clear winners or losers; and Finny does this intentionally. He does not orchestrate the games like this because he is afraid of losing but because he simply does not see the allure of winning. He does not engage in a competition in order to win but simply to enjoy the struggle. Finny’s lack of understanding of the attractiveness of winning leads to his ignorant view on the war when he believes, “The fat old men who don’t want us crowding them out of their jobs. They’ve made [the war] all up” (115). Finny does not actually believe this but he is so eager to find an explanation to explain the reason why people are fighting that he convinces himself to believe that the war is just a show. Lastly, Finny’s desire to avoid conflict leads him to be in denial when he discusses Genes pushing him out of the tree. Finny hopes that Gene just had a, “blind impulse you had in the tree there, you didn't know what you were doing...It wasn’t anything you really felt against me, it wasn’t some kind of hate you've felt all along. It wasn’t personal” (191). Phineas knows