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A Separate Peace

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A Separate Peace
As famous rapper Eminem once said, are you calling me, are you trying to get through. Are you reaching out for me, I’m reaching out for you. In John Knowles’ fictional novel A Separate Peace, the lives of three young men, Gene Forrester, Elwin “Leper” Lepellier, and Phineas, are shaped and constructed by the world war that is happening along side them. In their final year at the Devon school, the reality of the war becomes astonishingly more apparent when their detached unity is fragmentized. Each of the boy’s is impacted and affected by the war in a different way. The war had an increasingly dramatic effect on Finny throughout out the novel. In the beginning, Finny had a naïve and idealistic attitude towards the war. To him it was all a big game. When residing with his friends he invents a game, Blitzball, a game in which the combat side of Finny is utterly apparent. “Blitzball was made up by Finny so that he could be in control” (Critical Analysis of A Separate Peace).:
He has unconsciously invented a game, which brought out his own athletic pitch to their highest pitch. The odds were tremendously against the ball carrier, so that Phineas was driven to exceed himself practically every day when he carried the ball. To escape the wolf pack which all the other players became he created reverses and deceptions and acts of sheer mass hypnotism, which were, so extraordinary they surprised even him. (Knowles 39)
The game in fact is just a metaphor, created by Phineas to symbolize each of the boy’s individual struggles with the war. “Finny’s reality of the war comes into making up his own rules while eluding the real ones” (Critical Analysis of A Separate Peace). Since Phineas was the creator of Blitzball he could make changes to his rules and have an excuse for it. Finny used his games as an excuse for the boy’s “shaping up for the war” (Knowles 28). Finny uses the war as an excuse for almost everything he did. When getting in trouble for misbehaving he vindics


Cited: Eminem, Are you calling me, are you trying to get through. Are you reaching out for me, I’m reaching out for you. “Beautiful”. Relapse: Refill. Relapse. Interscope Records. 2009. "A Separate Peace By John Knowles Critical Essays Gene and Finny: Doubles." Gene and Finny: Doubles. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013. . "150,000 ESSAYS." Free Essay on Critical Analysis of "A Separate Peace" N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013. . "A Separate Peace By John Knowles Critical Essays From Innocence to Experience in A Separate Peace." From Innocence to Experience in A Separate Peace. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013. .
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