The Theme Of Growth And Change In A Separate Peace By John Knowles

Tyler Chang

Mr. Gurrieri

English 1 Honors; Class 4

16 November, 2017

Growth and Change in A Separate Peace

John Knowles is an award winning author of the novel, A Separate Peace, tells a story of a few college kids and how they began to change in a short period of time. With a world war going on behind the scenes, Finny and Gene, who are best friends, start a war between themselves. Finny, who is an athletic, popular, and taunting person pushes Gene, who is intelligent, unathletic, and lonely out of his comfort zone to try new things. Gene continues to follow Finny until one day he has had enough of him. Both wars progress and grow larger and relationships begin to break apart. Knowles does a terrific job on demonstrating that one’s actions

Elwin Lepellier also known as Leper, a quiet and shy character that turns into a psychopath knows this is true. For a long time, Leper acts like a kid through many examples. A few examples being when he moves dorms with his collection of snails (74-75) and another being when he went to go skiing to go see a beaver dam instead of helping shovel snow (95). Leper’s love and passion for biology and naturalism is what helps him grow up. As everyone is returning from holiday break, Leper watches a movie that displays ski troopers in the Navy. Leper likes the movie and thinks that the ski trooper squad will be a fit for him. (124). This forces him to enlist into the Navy. Leper claims that, “everything has to evolve or else it perishes.” (125). Since Leper’s love for nature motivates him to enlist, it shows a change in Leper’s thinking. It also foreshadows Finny’s death since he does not change. Leper believes that all things will die out if they do not change. Leper uses this to motivate himself to enlist into the Navy which shows maturity, change, and growth in him. Leper knew that he has to make a change in his life and that enlisting into the Navy will fulfill that need. Shortly after enlisting into the Navy, Leper sends Gene a telegram saying that he needs help (137). Gene goes to investigate Leper and finds out that the Navy turns him into an adult psycho (143). This will play a role later when Brinker Hadley tries to

Finny is part of the small amount of people. Even though Finny is an athletic and talented leader, this does not mean he can handle everything (mentally and physically) which is ultimately his downfall. Finny is stuck in a youth and innocence phase that he cannot break out of unlike everyone around him who matures into an adult. This forces him to make dumb and youth decisions which ultimately cost him the price in the end. Many examples reveal that Finny’s actions cost him his entry to adulthood. One example is when he creates the Super Suicide Society with Gene. This society is a bunch of people who jump out of a tree into a river for fun. Finny first comes up with the idea when he and Gene jump out of the tree for a second time and decide they need a name for the society. Finny tells Gene that, “[they’ll] form a suicide society, and the membership requirement is one jump out of this tree.” (31). An important note to remember is that Finny creates the society and not Gene. Something to consider about Finny is his mental state. In this situation, Finny does not consider that, “the tree [is] tremendous” (14) and how jumping out of it is dangerous. This comes to haunt him in the end. Finny’s childish decisions of jumping out of the tree not only affect him but also others. One of these moments is when he asks Gene to jump with him which angers Gene and