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

A Separate public security was written by active author John Knowles from his real experiences and personal fights. Knowles attended Phillips Exeter Academy, an scoop New Hampshire prep school, for two summer sessions in 1943 and 1944. This book vaguely step to the forelines his experiences at Exeter with himself as the main character b atomic number 18ly under the pretend of broker Forrester. Knowles novel tells the somber tarradiddle of a young mans struggle to escape from himself and his world to achieve a special and separate peace. The primordial setting of A Separate Peace is at the Devon School. The exact localisation of this school is not known in terms of a state, but it is identified as being in the South, sitting between a freshwater and a saltwater stream. The bulk of the story takes place in the years of 1942 through 1944 at the same time as initiation War II, but the beginning and end of the book consist of divisor looking back on his years at the Devon Schoo l 15 years after 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 fetchs that his conflict is internal. Misplaced jealousy, fear, love and hate fight for oblige 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 wanted to gift a close and meaningful blood with his best friend, but their relationship was forever scarred by Genes betrayal. Gene also learns that people destroy themselves all of the time for no reason, believing that others are enemies when they actually 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 cost to themselves these Maginot Lines a gainst this antagonist 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 climax of the story occurs when Gene and Finny finally have a two-sited discussion about the resultant at the tree. This tear-filled conversation makes each boy realize how much they actually care for each other.