A Separate Peace Summary
John Knowles

A Separate Peace by John Knowles John Knowles was born in 1926 and attended the prestigious New England boarding school Phillips Exeter Academy in the early 1940s. The following decade Knowles wrot... Read more

[This entry was updated by Hallman Bell Bryant (Clemson University) from the entry by Robert M. Nelson (University of Richmond) in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography, volume 6, pp. ... Read more

Critical Essay by John Mcinerney Most people remember John Knowles as the author of A Separate Peace, a brief, enormously popular novel which searchingly studied the lives of two boys on the brink of... Read more

Critical Essay by James L. Mcdonald It may be too early to attempt more than a tentative appraisal of the overall achievement of John Knowles. Certainly one can say that he ranks among the most promi... Read more

Critical Essay by Sally Kempton John Knowles's first book, "A Separate Peace," was one of those legendary adolescent novels, passed hand to hand around the dormitories at Groton,... Read more

Critical Essay by Jack Sullivan John Knowles, author of the highly acclaimed A Separate Peace, has now written a soap operatic historical novel about a coal baron's family in West Virginia tha... Read more

Critical Essay by Julian Moynahan The continuing appeal of "A Separate Peace" has little to do with its wartime atmosphere, though that is well handled. Rather, the attraction is its ce... Read more

Critical Essay by Harding Lemay "A Separate Peace," John Knowles' first novel, is a consistently admirable exercise in the craft of fiction—disciplined, precise, witty and... Read more

Critical Essay by James Ellis To read A Separate Peace is to discover a novel which is completely satisfactory and yet so provocative that the reader wishes immediately to return to it. John Knowles&... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Witherington The development and resolution of tensions between Gene and Finny provide the well-balanced structure of A Separate Peace, as several critics have noted. What has ... Read more

"Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him...The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinte... Read more

The imagery in the book A Separate Peace written by John Knowles was manifest through his use of similes and symbolisms. The imagery brought out by Knowles enhanced the flavors and colors of the story... Read more

"It wasn't the cider which made me surpass myself, it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special a... Read more

Does Finny Equal Fun and Brinker Discipline" A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, is about a boy, Gene, who spent his summer at The Devon School along with his best friend Finny. The summer is... Read more

A Separate Peace Not guilty is when you're innocent from what you are being accused of. In A Separate Peace, Gene was blamed for killing Finny, which is not true. Gene was charged for killing hi... Read more

Two Sides of the Story The rivers in A Separate Peace by John Knowles play an important part of the plot. It is a river that stands between life and death when the boys jump from the tree,... Read more

In most books the author creates a theme to the book. In The book A Separate Peace, many themes were used to get across the point of the story. Among these themes were: escape from reality, conformit... Read more

The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis chapter 4 is a classic example of jealousy and rage. The story goes that Cain and Abel, brothers and sons of Adam and Eve, bring offerings to the Lord. God look... Read more

In A Separate Peace, the main characters are foils of one another. The plot is pushed along by the changing dynamics of their friendship. Their relationship begins to drift apart when their personal... Read more

The decision of what to do and make of life usually confronts most people in adolescence. At two private schools, boys learn that choices can affect their lives for years to come. In A Separate Peace... Read more

John Knowles' A Separate Peace is a young boy's struggle to discover personal identity in an ever-changing world. Gene develops an intense resentment towards Finny because he embodies charisma, talent... Read more

Gene Forrester is an ordinary American Citizen faced with the turmoil of the 1940's. During this time, his enrolment at Devon school for boys alters his life entirely. Throughout his four-year atten... Read more

What is inhumanity? The definition of inhumanity is the lack of pity or compassion; a cruel act. In the novel, A Separate Peace, there are many inhumane actions displayed. The main character, Gene ... Read more

Gene and Finny greatly differ from each other. They both have different qualities and traits. Some of them may be bad and some of them may be good. Once you understand Gene and Finny's role in A Se... Read more

The main character, Gene Forrester returns to visit the campus of Devon School, an all-boys elementary school in rural New Hampshire, which he attended fifteen years ago. Two locations have a mysterio... Read more

John Knowles is a known author based on his most famous novel "A Separate Peace." "A Separate Peace" is not merely a title or phrase, but is in concordance with how the main character Gene gains fr... Read more

Throughout chapter four of A Separate Peace, there are many biblical allusions. In particular, the story of Eden, and the resurrection of Lazarus are mentioned as ways of presenting the similarities ... Read more

Everyone needs a friend in their lives. A good friend is one who can be trusted, obliging, and will be there when one needs them the most. A friendship is either a good relationship or a bad one. A Se... Read more

A Separate Peace, a novel by John Knowles, opens with the narrator revisiting the Devon School located in New Hampshire, the school he attended fifteen years ago. Visiting sites such as the marble s... Read more

Soldiers all look the same when they are marching to the front line with guns on their shoulders and helmets on their heads. However, the faces under their helmets show the "differences." By "diffe... Read more

One example of symbolism John Knowles' A Seprate Peace is from page one. As Gene visits Devon School, he finds it looking oddly newer than when he was a student there fifteen years before. Gene notic... Read more

"My war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there" (204). When Gene Forrester stated this quote in A Separate Peace by John Knowles, he ... Read more

A Separate War In John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace, like most other literature, conflict resides within the main character himself. Throughout the course of the novel, Gene Forrester struggles to... Read more

In Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the characters are incredibly unique and have various sources of motivation. Some of the characters are intrinsically motivated, they motivate themselves and do not... Read more

In our lives, we grow each living day. When we are born, we are helpless and innocent, simply living though the day with no complex thoughts. As adults, we are sure and confident of ourselves as we pr... Read more

Everything seemed perfect about Gene and Finny’s relationship with each other; however Gene went above and beyond the limit of “idolizing”. Competition arose. A little competition b... Read more

Growing out of the adolescent stage at a time period when your country is on the brink of the Second World War, and you are overly sheltered by the confines of a private school, you can definitely be... Read more

"Because I've Suffered" "Because I have suffered." Those were the words Finny said that shocked Gene. Perhaps it was because he really was mad Gene for knocking him out of the tree. However, that... Read more

The novel, A Separate Peace, revolves around one character more than any other. The name of this complex character is Gene. John Knoweles presents these complexities many times throughout this great p... Read more

Competitive Friendship The book, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles was written about the friendship of two teenage boys during the time of World War II. The two boys are very much alike, but at the... Read more

A Separate Peace by John Knowles is about two boys who grow and learn from each other. Gene and Phineas are two completely different people, who dissimilar personalities compliment each other. One ... Read more

In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, a tragedy known as World War II strikes America, and impacts the lives of the boys at Devon School. Each character in the book deals with the w... Read more