Symbolism In A Separate Peace By John Knowles

Like a raindrop can foretell a storm, any object, action, or event can have a deeper meaning. A Separate Peace tells the story of boys at a boarding school under the backdrop of World War Two. John Knowles, the author, uses descriptive language to give power to the troubles that Gene, Phineas, and their classmates/friends go through, whether it be the effects of war, identity struggles, or friendship. The main conflict, Gene’s love/hate relationship with Phineas, ends with Phineas’s accidental death and Gene’s newfound mature awareness. John Knowles uses symbolism in many instances to strengthen his storytelling. A symbolism is a figure of speech that uses near anything with the meaning of something else.John Knowles uses the Summer and Winter

“ Ours had been a wayward gypsy music, leading us down all kinds of foolish gypsy ways, unforgiven.”, Gene reminisces, “I was glad of it, I had almost caught the rhythm of it, the dancing, clicking jangle of it during the summer”(Knowles 65). Gene talks of it in a positive light as if he wants to go back. Knowles’s writings insinuates that childhood is benevolent and fun. During the Summer session, the boys are having fun while having no real responsibilities, because that time hasn’t arrived yet. Knowles contrasts the Summer session with the bleak Winter session that represents adulthood. The symbolism shows in this quote: “Today’s hymn was Dear Lord and Father of Mankind Forgive Our Foolish Ways; we had never heard that during the summer either”(Knowles 65). The boys must now forget the fun that occurred in the summer and get busy as the war inches closer. As they shovel snow, pick apples, and start to get on each other’s nerves, Knowles shows that adulthood is rough, especially after the easygoing life before them. The Winter session always comes after the Summer session as age goes upwards. Knowles writes, “...it scattered the easygoing summer spirit like so many fallen leaves”(Knowles 64). Life goes in only one direction (childhood to adulthood), so the symbolism is complete when the Winter session sweeps away the fun of summer. The changing of the seasons

Like childhood, he easily brings fun to Gene and the other boys. “When I got back I found him in the middle of a snowball fight in a place called the Fields Beyond”(Knowles 144). The power of Finny is the power to bring people together for enjoyment. The boys are wrapped in the need for an escape out of haunted reality. That is the lure of Finny that makes it hard to accept the future. Gene struggles with keeping a positive relationship with Finny which symbolizes the loss of childhood. “I was Phineas, Phineas to the life. I even had his humorous expression in my face, his sharp, optimistic awareness. I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief, but it seemed, standing there in Finny’s triumphant shirt, that I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again”(Knowles 54). Wearing the image of childhood, Gene feels comfortable. He wants to keep it, but it is not as simple as putting a shirt in. Wearing a shirt doesn’t put out the wildfire inside of Gene, especially when the fire is trying to burn the shirt. When Finny passes away, there is only one person Gene can be: an adult. In the end, Gene reflects with the awareness of an adult and without the angst of a teenager. With Finny effaced, Gene no longer has a love/hate relationship with Finny or an identity struggle between childhood and adulthood, yet childhood isn’t effaced in reflection; Gene, as an adult, holds the childlike qualities, that Finny