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A Separate Peace

by John Knowles

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Critical Evaluation

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John Knowles wrote in various prose forms, including the novel and short story, but A Separate Peace was his most celebrated work. Knowles based the novel on his experiences at his own preparatory school, Phillips Exeter Academy, a place Knowles loved for its natural beauty and atmosphere. Rich in detail, the book presents readers with many complex themes, including individuality, denial, memory, and youth.

Knowles’s work stresses the concept of individuality and, inherently, resisting conformity. Finny epitomizes individuality; his confidence and his choices often cause discomfort in others. Finny wears a pink shirt to dinner, uses the school tie as a belt, and shares his feelings openly about emotional subjects such as his friendship with Gene. These actions place him apart from his classmates, who wear their uniforms properly and do not reveal their vulnerabilities. Finny’s sincerity also emphasizes his individuality: While most of his classmates act and speak as expected—properly and with regard to the addressed person’s class and station—Finny speaks simply and honestly. He speaks freely even to members of the school’s administration. While these adults seem taken aback, they never rebuke Finny for his behavior since his comments are sincere, confident, and always well intended.

Another topic central to A Separate Peace is denial. Finny’s claim that there is no war functions as the most obvious example of denial in the novel. Since he cannot play an active role in the war because of his injury, he flatly and fervently argues the war is nothing more than a ploy concocted by fat, old, wealthy men. Knowles also poignantly explores the nuances of denial in the characters of Gene and Finny after the latter’s fall from the tree. Gene is afraid to confront himself about why the limb shook, and Finny refuses to believe Gene’s revelation that he jounced the limb on purpose. The two stay friends as long as the issue remains overlooked.

Gene and Finny’s denial over the accident leads to significant pain, and the nature of Gene’s actions must eventually be confronted. After Finny’s leg breaks for the second time, he and Gene face reality together. Finny’s resolve finally fades, and he confronts Gene, unleashing all the worries and concerns that have plagued him since his accident. Relieved that Finny acknowledges what Gene has always felt (that he shook the limb on purpose), the young men finally come to peace with themselves and one another. Because denial has been replaced by acknowledgment of the truth, Gene feels peace even after losing his best friend.

Since the novel is framed as a flashback to years past, another theme central to the novel is remembrance. The adult Gene seems unafraid of reliving the past in his memory since the truth of what transpired was uncovered years ago. Readers may doubt the objectivity of Gene’s memories since he plays a central role in the story he narrates. By encapsulating the novel in memory, Knowles forces readers to question whether events transpired as Gene describes. Gene’s sense of peace at the close of the book, coupled with his critical and reflective exploration of his younger self, tends to indicate that Gene’s rendering of events is accurate. As a novel that encourages readers to value honesty and reality, several of the work’s central themes would be discredited if Gene’s version of events were unfaithful.

Knowles suggests that one’s setting has incredible power to evoke memories. The novel opens with Gene describing, in detail, Devon’s grounds. Including such details helps contextualize the story for readers, and Knowles expertly provides graphic descriptions of both natural objects (such as trees and rivers) and artificial structures (such as buildings on the Devon campus). These elements function as a framework for Gene to remember and, in many respects, relive the past.

The subject of youth is also fundamental to the novel. The story focuses on a group of young men who at first, in their junior year, seem protected from the war. Gene recalls that even some of the school staff made special allowances for the young men. During the summer of 1942, Gene and his friends came to represent pure freedom. They were carefree, and the older men (all too knowledgeable about the straining effects of war) admired these students’ situation: Gene, Finny, Brinker, and the others were all young men on the brink of going off to war but still inhabited a pocket of time in which they could live joyfully. Gene and his friends were bursting with potential, the potential to live gloriously or to die sorrowfully. Some would live sadly, like Leper, whose mind broke under the pressure of war; some would die tragically, like Finny, without even setting foot on a battlefield. A Separate Peace reminds readers that, even though one matures, youth is still accessible through memory. Likewise, revisiting one’s youth may create a sense of peace, a peace that is possible only with reflection.

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