Theme Of Identity In A Separate Peace

Chapter four starts with the gray dawn and closes with a gray dusk. Also, it begins with Gene describing Finny coming to life as Lazarus and ends with the tragic fall that destroys his life. Finny wakes that morning with characteristic action, proposing a quick swim. But of couse Gene declines because he is thinking about his limits and rules. When he looked at the sun, he knew it was about 6:30, and all he could do was worry about his trigonometry test that would be at 10:00. For Gene, the meaning of the morning emerges not from the beauty of the dawn the beautiful beach, but from his worries and disappointments. Finny has lost their money, and they must now bicycle back to Devon without breakfast and arrive just in time for Gene to fail his

cold blast for the enemy. The winter lives to destroy the warmth of the summer

For many people, they struggle with finding their identity throughout Middle School and High School. The people that you hang out with, the teachers who teach you, and even the classes you take all shape and define who you are in school. At Devon, a military prep school, the students identity could be found in the war effort, friends, or even clubs. For Gene, he tried to define himself as someone who was popular, athletic, and a leader in the "Suicide Club". This starts an envious relationship with Finny who is already popular, athletic, and leader in the club. As the book goes on we started to see a change in Gene, a change to start to be more like Finny, even at one point "put on his clothes... but when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become, no character out of daydreams. I was Phineas, Phineas to the life." (A Separate Peace 29) Gene became so engulfed in trying to be like Finny that, in his own eyes, he had become Finny. In the end all we can fall back on is our faith in Jesus and find our identity in him. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we live by faith, not by

Another way Gene is affected is that he loses self-identity. Forester remarks, “He forced compliance by leaning against me as we walked away, changing my direction, like a police” (Knowles 13). Gene Forester is portrayed to be confirmatory to Finny, as he loses self – reliance.

As Gene feels the obligation to lose himself to become Finny, Knowles shows us that a loss of identity may be present in a relationship if there is an unequal amount of power. When Finny tells Gene that he has to play sports in the place of Finny himself, Gene says, “I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas” (77). Gene loses who he is to become the powerful Finny because told him to do so. He feels the need to give up his identity seeing that he has the order to do. This results in an unequal friendship because a true friend would never force someone to do something that would make them lose who they actually are. Gene and Finny’s unbalanced friendship eventually causes paranoia and insecurity on the less powerful side known as Gene because he is giving himself up.

Many people think that it is easy to let go of the past, to move on, to let it all go, apologize to those you hurt, and forgive the people who have hurt you. But in reality, others would agree that it is definitely easier said than actually done. The book, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, is about a boy, Gene Forrester, who is attending an all boy boarding school in New England during the beginning of World War 2. He battles to find his inner self while also battling with the hardships of having a best friend, Finny, who everyone adores and who is good at everything he does. This book is chalked full of events, dramatic as well as calm, between these two boys that happen during a particular summer. They not only find their inner selves and make a stronger bond, but they stretch the limits of their relationship and they lose the innocence of their world. Coming of age is a necessary, but often challenging stage of life which involves seeing oneself and the world as they truly are. Coming of age is the main theme of this book because the boys need to be able to grow and mature into the young adults that they need to become.

The novel A Separate Peace focuses mainly around a 17 year old named Gene Forrester and his psychological development. The story is set in a boys boarding school in USA during World War II. There are four main boys in the novel and they all undergo major character changes through the story. One of them goes crazy, and the others experience severe attitude changes. Gene is caught right in the center of these changes. He is very close with all of the other three boys, and thus all of the changes affect him very much. Due to all the tension occurring in this novel because of the war and events going on at the school, there is a lot of denial of truth happening. Three of the four boys mentioned earlier deny the truth at sometime in the story.

In the novel, “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, the seasons develop actions and characters in the story. The story takes place at an all-boys boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II based off of the author’s previous experiences at a boarding school. The two main characters, Finny and Gene, experience character development alongside different seasons. In written works, seasons are commonly used to symbolically represent a change in the character’s personalities. The nature or setting of the story is used to specifically evolve Finny and Gene in seasons such as the summer, autumn, and winter. Each season change also generates an entirely different mood.

In the novel A Separate Peace, the tree is the primary symbol used to describe the hardships, adventure, and danger of the lives of the characters. While the tree is not the only symbol used by Knowles, it is the one that Gene spends most of his time reflecting on. To Gene, the tree is “tremendous” and “a steely black steeple.” But for Finny, the tree symbolizes his downfall and eventually his death. By the end of the novel, the tree has lost its significance to Gene and has become smaller and less realistic. Another big symbol in the novel is the war. World War II was of no real meaning to Gene and his classmates when they were juniors because that is all that they did was play war. But by the time their senior year had begun, the war was real and the draft was coming for them. For Finny in particular, the war symbolized his destiny as a hero because he wanted nothing more than to be an athlete and a warrior. Another primary symbol used by Knowles is the separation between the summer and winter sessions at Devon because while the summer session was filled with laid back and innocent fun, the winter session was a dark time with preparation for war. And, the last symbol recognized is the fall of Finny from the tree on the riverbank. This fall not only symbolizes the end of childly innocent times and the beginning of war filled adulthood, but it also symbolizes the eventual death of Finny. In all, the presence

A Separate Peace, which was written by John Knowles, has many themes. They are interconnected throughout the book. The most clearly portrayed theme is fear. It seems to be connected with the themes of friendship, jealousy, and war. As World War II was occurring, fear had taken over Gene's life through these various themes. When he visited Devon fifteen years after leaving the school, Gene claimed, "I had lived in fear while attending the school and I can now feel fear's echo" (Knowles 10). He felt like he had gained a separate peace after escaping from this fear.

When Gene and Finny climb up onto the tree to jump once again, Gene says, “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb” (59-60). This quote shows the point where Gene directly affects Finny the most, shattering his leg and destroying his athletic hopes and dreams, setting off the events for what’s to follow. When Gene is visiting Finny at his home to speak with him about the tree incident, he declares, “I deliberately jounced the limb so you would fall off. He looked older than I had ever seen him,” then Finny replies, “Of course you didn’t” (70). This displays a point where Gene affecting Finny’s personality trait of extreme trust, as in this case Finny doesn’t believe that Gene jounced the limb, as he trusts Gene immensely, but Gene challenges that trust by revealing the truth of what had occured while they were on the tree.

First, Gene admits to being guilty of shaking a tree in order to injure Finny when he visits him at his home, making Finny livid, and temporarily tearing them apart. Gene is envious of Finny’s athletic ability and bravery. One way Finny shows his bravery is by jumping off a tree for fun. Gene is greatly threatened by the bravery, so he decides to strip it from Finny by shaking the tree one day, making him fall and suffer an injury. Consequently, he instantly regrets his decision, but he realizes that the damage is done. Remorsefully, he wants to apologize for his terrible choice, but when he tries to talk about the situation and confess, Finny is in denial and starts to get angry. Finny’s denial is evident when he says “‘I don’t know anything. Go away. I’m tired and you make me sick. Go away’” (Knowles 70). This dialogue shows how Finny did not believe that Gene caused the incident even after the confession. This is because he believes that Gene would not do such an action. The confession tears Finny apart to the point that he lashes out at Gene and wants him to leave his house. If Gene did not commit the notorious action, Finny would not have to feel the pain physically from the injury, and mentally from the idea that Gene would hurt him, and the boys could have a stronger friendship.

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that intimidation is suicide…” (Emerson 370). A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, takes place at Devon, a preparatory school in New Hampshire, during the 1940’s. Gene Forrester is a student at Devon and drives much of the story’s plot through his intimidation of his best friend Finny. A Separate Peace not only shows how Gene’s envy and intimidation of Finny affected him and his friendship with Finny, but it also shows Gene’s failure in achieving true peace.

Once Gene decides to spend time with Finny rather than doing his schoolwork, the shift from disciplined to more carefree diction determines Gene’s conflict, creating a more resentful tone. This tone directly corresponds with the conflicting diction as Gene says “Finny kept me entertained. He told long, wild stories” (46). By using words such as “entertained… wild… joking... musical”, Knowles is combining a carefree tone with a disciplined one that Gene first experiences. As mentioned earlier, when he states the decision he made “destroyed the studying I was going to do for an important test” (46), it mirrors the emotional state Gene is facing as well as the contrasting diction. Gene agrees to go to the beach yet he cannot come to terms with the repercussions of the adventure they are taking. He says it “blasted the reasonable amount of order I wanted to maintain in my life” (46). Gene himself is conflicted, which creates a resentful tone as he is unsure if the choice he made is the right one because it will affect his studying. Gene struggles with his constant “need to study” (57), until Finny requests Gene’s presence on different adventures. When they arrive at the beach, Gene describes a wave as “immeasurably bigger than I am, rushing at me... and took control of me” (46). The wave he experiences symbolizes Finny’s impact on Gene

Identity is a state of mind in which someone recognizes/identifies their character traits that leads to finding out who they are and what they do and not that of someone else. In other words it's basically who you are and what you define yourself as being. The theme of identity is often expressed in books/novels or basically any other piece of literature so that the reader can intrigue themselves and relate to the characters and their emotions. It's useful in helping readers understand that a person's state of mind is full of arduous thoughts about who they are and what they want to be. People can try to modify their identity as much as they want but that can never change. The theme of identity is a very strenuous topic to understand