A Separate Peace | Themes
Guilt and Innocence
In John Knowles's novel that chronicles the coming-of-age of two prep-school friends, one character—Finny—loses much of his trustfulness and innocence, while the other—Gene—progresses toward self-knowledge and maturity. That A Separate Peace takes place in the first half of the 1940s explains so many references to war. In this novel, however, the real struggle is fought in the hearts of the characters, not on the battlefield.
After Gene causes Finny's crippling fall, everything that follows, as Knowles has written, is "one long...
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