A Seperate Peace :: essays research papers

In John Knowles discussion A Separate Peace he communicates how the war in him was winning its toll on him. He uses the characters in a complicated game to show the destructive forces of war. The characters, divisor and Finny, are the opposing forces in a struggle between the earth of war (World War II) and a complexify peace. A peace away from the real war and the awful things that father from it. Through their relationship, which is a struggle on both sides, Knowles establishes the reality of war through a relationship. component Forrestor is established as the force of reality. This theme is established clearly in a speech divisor gives as the narrator of the story.E rattlingone has a number in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you reckon to this person the world today or behavior or reality he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty long time past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever. (Knowles, 32)This statement explains that Gene must have something that is his stamp. This stamp defines an individual standing up for something he believes in. The next paragraph shows that this is true where Gene continues, For me, this moment-four years is a moment in history-war the war. The war was and is reality for me. I still stand and think in its atmosphere. (Knowles, 32) Later in the same paragraph he goes on to saythe States is not, never has been, and never will be what the songs and poems call it, a land of plenty. Nylon, meat, gasoline, and steel are rare. There are too many jobs and not enough workers. Money is very halcyon to earn but rather hard to spend, because there isnt very much to buy. The war will always be fought very faraway away from America and it will never end. Nothing in America stands still for very long, including t he people, who are always either leaving or on leave. (Knowles, 32)This is what Gene stands for in the book A Separate Peace. Gene appears to understand the reality of war and how it affects people. Throughout the entire story Gene is used to bring the destructive reality of war into everyday life at Devon High School where there is an attempt to create and live in a separate peace.