A Seperate Peace, by John Knowles :: essays research papers

A give a commission Peace was create verbally by active author John Knowles from his real experiences and personal struggles. Knowles attended Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive New Hampshire prep school, for two summer sessions in 1943 and 1944. This have vaguely outlines his experiences at Exeter with himself as the main character merely chthonic the name of component Forrester. Knowles novel tells the somber story of a newborn mans struggle to escape from himself and his world to achieve a special and clear up peace. The primary setting of A Separate Peace is at the Devon inform. The carry location of this school is not known in terms of a state, notwithstanding it is identified as being in the South, sitting betwixt a freshwater and a saltwater stream. The bulk of the story takes get off in the years of 1942 through 1944 at the same time as World War II, but the beginning and end of the leger brood of Gene looking back on his years at the Devon School 15 years af ter he had attended it. A Separate Peace considers two conflicts man against man and man against himself. Early in the story Gene believes that his problems lie within his best friend Phineas (Finny), but later he realizes that his conflict is internal. Misplaced jealousy, fear, love and hate counterbalance for control of Genes actions. When the dark side of him wins for a brief moment and he pushes Finny out of a tree it ends his man against man conflict and makes Gene realize that Finnys intention has never been to sabotage him. He had only precious to have a close and meaningful relationship with his best friend, but their relationship was forever scarred by Genes betrayal. Gene also learns that plurality destruct themselves all of the time for no reason, believing that others are enemies when they in reality are not.. This can be observed in the last lines of the book when Gene states, "All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite salute to themselves these M aginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way -if he ever attacked at all if he was indeed the enemy."The end of the story occurs when Gene and Finny finally have a two-sited discussion or so the incident at the tree. This tear-filled conversation makes each boy realize how frequently they actually care for each other.