A Separate Peace By John Knowles

When people tend to think of war they think of bloody gruesome battles, although this is one perspective, war doesn’t always have to result in bloodshed. A Separate Peace written by John Knowles is a story of two boys, who attend a private school, Devon, during the occurrence of World War II. Through the simple yet intricate whole story there are many lessons, themes, and symbols that we as human beings can apply to our own lives daily. As humans we create our own enemies due to our envy and insecurities. In this novel Gene Forrester struggles to accomplish and preserve a separate peace. The novel is a result of Genes inability to realize that the real enemy is himself. Knowles uses the characters of Gene and finny as antithesis to each other, and the symbols of World War II, Finny's fall, and Seasons to portray that there will always be wars due to human nature.

With Genes perspective of Finny being the main enemy Gene places himself in an environment of competition and acrimony. Genes feeling of needing to be better leads him to have evil thoughts and even more drastic actions. After Genes realization of Finny not thinking in the same competitive way as him, genes repugnance for himself worsens, and it leads to the intentionally injures the one person who
So, too, does Finny’s fall demonstrate to Gene that his resentment and envy are not without consequences, as they lead to intense feelings of shame and guilt. The literal fall, then, symbolizes a figurative fall from innocence—like Adam and Eve, who eat from the Tree of Knowledge and are consequently exiled from the Garden of Eden into sin and suffering, the students at Devon, often represented by Gene, are propelled from naïve childhood into a knowledge of good and evil that marks them as