Michael Gao English I Honors A Separate Peace

3/14/11 Period 3

A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a pivotal book describing the challenges of maturation and growth in adolescence. Set in the fictional Devon Academy, this classic details the inner turmoil of a group of boys as they face the challenges of adulthood and an impending war. The boys experiences cause a loss of innocence and a need to find peace within a tumultuous environment. Often, these experiences culminate in a pivotal event of growth that forces each character to either evolve or perish. Everything must evolve or else it perishes (Knowles 117). This quotation shows how each boy achieves his separate peace by moving on or dying when confronted with the transition into maturity. The phenomenon of achieving a separate peace is best seen through the experiences of three major characters in the book, Gene, Finny, and Leper. Gene is one of the major characters who achieve a separate peace. While Phineas is at Devon, Gene is mired in the innocence of the summer. For instance, he often finds himself believing Finnys absurd vision of peace and the possibility of a 1944 Olympics. Genes development is wrapped up in his guilt over Phineass accident; while Finny is alive, this guilt leads to his stunted development and inability to evolve. Yet Finny dies, and his death becomes Genes pivotal moment of change. With Phineas gone, Gene is able to recognize the fear and the irrational need to fight an enemy that permeated his life. I was ready for the war, now that I no longer had any hatred to contribute to it. My fury was gonePhineas had absorbed it and taken it with him, and I was rid of it forever (Knowles 195). This quotation emphasizes how Gene

sees that Finnys death takes all the hate and fear that characterized his Devon days. With his own innocence and refusal to let his experiences change his benevolent character, Finny helps Gene escape being overwhelmed by his transition into reality. As a result, Finnys death represents the death of childhood, which leaves Gene devoid of his conflicting emotions and ready to conquer his fear of growing up and the unknown. Gene also learns to recognize his own flaws and accept others for who they are, which is demonstrated by his toleration of Brinkers flaws and Brinkers fathers unreasonable insistence that they try to be war heroes. Ultimately, Gene is able to move on from Devon Academy and take on the responsibilities and hardships of war and adulthood with a ready calm. This leads to Gene reaching his separate peace, because he can progress into life without any qualms or bitterness over his high school days. The evidence for this successful evolution into adulthood is shown by Genes narration. Gene is able to return to Devon and become the narrator of the dark tale of his high school days; he has survived the ordeal of maturation and is now a successful man, showing that he has overcome his fear and reached inner peace. Thus, Gene is able to come to a state of separate peace after Finnys death. Another character who achieves a separate peace is Phineas. Prior to his pivotal moment of change, Finny is a rebellious non-conformist who represents innocence. He leads other people to being carefree and follows only his own rules, not the ones imposed on him. The pivotal moment of growth for Finny is when he realizes Genes guilt in his accident. This realization forces him to see the darkness and evil of humanity. Phineas is also forced to understand how incompatible his innocent nature is with the competitive nature of the world. This is shown when Gene says Phineas is not fit to fight the war, as he would not understand the concept of enemy and would make a mess out of the war. Nothing in the world is like the blitzball games devised by Finny, where everybody seeks to strive athletically together. Triumph in the real world is

about succeeding at the expense of the opposite side, something Finny finds difficult and terrible to comprehend. This is especially true in a war, where one side seeks to gain victory by harming the other side; in wars, both sides do not try to win together. Thus, the world has no place for someone like Finny, who cannot understand that success can only be achieved by defeating others. Finny is also unable to evolve, because he is unwilling to leave the protective shell of his innocent past. When he tries to convince himself that Gene jounced the branch out of a blind impulse and forgives Gene, Finny demonstrates his continuing desperation to explain the evil in the world. He is unable to move into adulthood because he cannot reconcile this conflict. Consequently, Phineas dies and is only then able to achieve his separate peace. Leper is another character who experiences a loss of innocence but still achieves a separate peace. Like Finny, Leper too is a non-conformist and a figure of innocence before his pivotal event of change. He is connected to nature and is often a solitary figure, excluded from the activities of the other boys and ridiculed by his peers. Lepers pivotal moment is when he goes into the army and realizes he cannot fit in with the armys strict conformity. Leper attempts to evolve by joining the army, enlisting in the ski troopers because they represent a familiar, friendly part of a largely foreign war. However, his effort to adapt to adulthood flounders. For example, Leper eats and sleeps in the wrong places; he eats at the firing range and sleeps during lectures. Leper comprehends the need to evolve and tries to do so. When he joins the ski troopers, he notes how skiing needed to change to continue to appeal to people. Nevertheless, he cannot adapt to the armys conformity and adulthood, and Leper starts having hallucinations and goes insane. Thus, Leper perishes by losing his mind. Lepers insanity is also his separate peace. He no longer has to deal with a world he cannot conform to and the challenges of adulthood or the war. Leper is eternally connected to the innocent summer of 1942, when he was free of the

pressures of maturity and war. As a result, to obtain inner peace in a world that preaches maturity and absolute conformity, Leper can only perish. Consequently, because he cannot evolve into adulthood, insanity is Lepers way of attaining inner peace. In conclusion, three of the main characters of a Separate Peace, Gene, Finny, and Leper, are able to attain inner peace in the turbulent transition from childhood innocence to the real challenges of adulthood and World War II. They do this either by successfully adapting or perishing. Gene achieves a separate peace through Finnys death, which takes his hate and fear away and leaves him ready to evolve from his past and face the challenges of adulthood and service in the military. Finny sees the evil of this world and the incongruity of his own nature through his realization of Genes malicious intent in the accident and thus achieves a separate peace by dying, or perishing. Leper, another character who achieves a separate peace, goes through a loss of innocence as he attempts and fails to fit into the armys conformity and evolve, but attains inner peace by losing his mind. The process of achieving inner peace by either moving on or dying, particularly after a monumental experience, is a major and crucial theme in the story.