A Separate Peace

Brinker's father is a representative of the older generation, the children of World War I. He wants his son to race bravely into the thick of the fighting, rather than to hold back and stay on the...

This question is very broad - to what extent is it possible to understand all the many different motivations as to why an author chooses to write a book? However, certainly one of the major reasons...

In Chapter 6 of the novel, Gene discusses the changes at Devon. He begins by stating, "Peace had deserted Devon" (72). The lackadaisical feel of Devon's first summer school is gone, and the...

The main example of a loss of innocence in A Separate Peace is Gene. He is never the same again after he deliberately jiggles the tree branch and sends Phineas falling off the tree to shatter his...

Gene decides, after the beach trip with Finny, that Finny is trying to sabotage his academic success. What triggers this is a conversation the two have after Gene fails his trigonometry test...

The snowfall is like the impact of war on the students because of the insidious way it creeps up on them. Although the boys know that the war is coming, when it finally affects them directly, they...

Gene does not exactly hit Leper; he "shove(s) (his) foot against the rung of his chair and kick(s)," sending Leper onto the floor. He does this when Leper, who is bitter and unflinchingly honest,...

Gene has a competitive personality, a darker side of himself, that he doesn't like to acknowledge. As a result, he projects his deeply competitive nature onto Phineas. It isn't that he is...

Near the end of A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene Forrester first learns of Finny's death from Dr. Stanpole, who at the moment is "incomprehensible" (185). Reeling from the shock of his...

Finny is seeking reassurance. Gene's visit to Finny's home shook Finny's basic belief that all people are basically good. Finny was always a straightforward person and did not see duplicity in...

Though the balance of power in their friendship clearly favors Phineas, he does demonstrate true friendship towards Gene at several points early in the novel A Separate Peace if the reader agrees...

I like the symbolismof the two rivers that run through Devon's campus. One, the Devon River, is a body of fresh water; it symbolizes the youthful innocence of the boys on campus as they gather for...

In A Separate Peace, Leper is academically sound, but he is also a socially awkward introvert. Gene, on the other hand, is socially adept as well as an academic achiever. Neither boy is perfect,...

A foil in literature is someone that makes another character seem better by contrast. Since A Separate Peace is narrated from Gene's point of view, his insecurities are pitted against Finny's...

When Phineas returns to Devon School with his leg in a cast, he does his best to resume as much of his previous existence as possible - mediocre student, smooth talker, ringleader of adventures....

In the novel, Finny is portrayed as a fun-loving, spontaneous adolescent, who is innocent and charismatic. With regards to authority, Gene mentions: Phineas didn’t really dislike West Point in...

In Chapter 3 of A Separate Peace, Finny persuades Gene to jump from the tree; when Gene loses his balance, Finny's hand quickly shoots out and he grabs Gene's arm, saving him from falling. Later,...

The phrasing of this question makes the answer subjective and up to individual readers. Your answer needs to explain what "a separate peace" means to you. The quote provided appears about...

In Chapter 8 of John Knowles A Separate Peace, Gene narrates, Until now, in spite of everything, I had welcomed each new day as though it were a new life, where all past failures and problems were...

The resolution of a story is the final outcome after a conflict. There are two main conflicts facing the protagonist, Gene Forrester: coming to terms about himself regarding his friendship with...

When Gene visits Elwin "Leper" Lepellier, Leper is at home in Vermont and has returned from his short service in the army. Instead of being the nature-loving and timid boy he was, Leper has become...

I do not know all that much about private boys' schools in that time and place, but I am wondering whether the school followed a British system that had boys starting much younger than ninth grade....

In chapter six, Gene has a fight with Quackenbush--they exchange blows, and end up falling in the river together. Gene was soaking wet from the incident, and as he tried to get back to his room...

The marble staircase is significant because of several things. First of all, the marble itself is old, but not overly worn in; this symbolizes the age of the school and the traditions, but also...

Describing his return to Devon School, Gene Forester mentions that the school looks like a museum because it appears to have been covered with varnish in order to preserve it. Yet, like other such...

After reading the quote many times, it dawned on me that World War II was not the only thing that faced these boys during their senior year, although the significance of them facing the war is the...

Gene knows that Finny does not have the soldier's mentality; that is, he doesn't have enough malice within him to kill others on behalf of a cause. Finny's main concern is that everyone be treated...

The night that Brinker and three others come to Gene and Finny's room to "take them out" in prelude to the trial in the First Academy Building, Gene is helping Finny with his Latin. Gene works to...

Phineas is the first that comes to mind when associating the word "denial" with the book A Separate Peace. In chapter 2, Phineas discusses the bombing in Europe at a dinner with some adults, but...

Brinker Hadley is portrayed as a responsible, law-abiding student, who serves as Finny's foil in the novel. Unlike the spontaneous, carefree Finny, Brinker is one of Devon's top students who has an...

All persons bring their individual perceptions and biases with them when telling a story about past events in their lives, and these personal understandings inevitably have some impact upon the...

Although no one believes that he will actually go through with it, Leper is the only one of the other boys who actually steps forward with the intention of jumping from the tree. Until that time,...

An allusion is a reference made to someone or something that the reader, or a character, might know or understand. This helps to extract familiar knowledge about a topic and apply it to the story...

A Separate Peace is a novel of duality of setting as well as of voice; for, as an adult, Gene Forrester returns to Devon School, a private school of privileged young men, in order to make sense of...

Much like the residents who return to the war-torn homes as they try to salvage what they can, Gene Forrester of A Separate Peace returns as a man to Devon School, a man from the "forest" to...

Gene returns to Devon in late fall, at the end of November. It was a raw, non-descript time of year, toward the end of November, ... [a] wet, self-pitying November day. The emotionally charged...

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is set at Devon school. The first chapters of the novel take place during the summer session, when the war seems far away and the boys all exist in a time of...

There are two rivers in A Separate Peace, the Naguamsett and the Devon. In Chapter 6, the Naguamsett River is described, in part, as "...ugly, saline, fringed with marsh, mud and seaweed. A few...

When Gene visits Leper, he learns the psychological effects that war can have upon someone, and Gene learns that the same evil that begins wars resides within himself. After receiving the telegram...

Gene Forrester, the protagonist and narrator of A Separate Peace, goes to two places in the novel to visit friends. Gene's first visit happens when he is on his way back to school for the...

The novel begins at Devon during the Summer Session of 1942 when Gene and Finny, along with the other members of their class, live lives that have not, as yet, been caught up in World War II....

The backdrop for A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is World War II, but it is also a hovering presence in the lives of every character. The teachers at Devon school this year are only old men...

At the end of Chapter 9, the tone changes drastically, from light and carefree to ominous. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to describing the fantasy world created by Finny, or, as Gene calls it,...

When discussing Gene Forrester's internal war, he thinks it centers around him versus his best friend Phineas; but it's really a matter of man vs. self. As a bildungsroman (a coming-of-age story) A...

The investigation happens at the end of Chapter 11 of A Separate Peace. The goal of the “investigation” (which is more of a mock trial) is to figure out what happened when Phineas fell out of the...

In John Knowles's "A Separate Peace," Finny is not just a student at Devon, he is a force, a flight of fancy. Finny represents the delightful impetuosity of youth, the imagination that denies...

Finny is charismatic. There are very few people in life who possess this quality. They have the ability to get anyone to listen to them (Finny does this not only with the other boys at Devon but...

A Separate Peace is a book that examines the coming of age of its two central characters, Gene and Phineas. It is an adventurous book that takes a daring look at the nature of friendship in a...

A main theme of the novel is Gene's struggle to come to grips with having wronged a dear friend in a terrible way in a moment of impulse. The novel asks: how does one deal with the guilt of having...

Throughout the story, Gene is shown to be a more passive, reserved individual than Finny, which lends to his credence in the end of the novel. Gene has grown concerned that Finny is trying to usurp...