Personal Review

John Knowles has portrayed an idiosyncratic view on World War II in his novel, A Separate Peace. By the illustration of a war that is world wide and a reclusive war between two friends, Knowles reveals that even miles from the fighting, in a New England boarding school, war is inevitable. With the base of his novel on two separate wars, I find the title to be ironic. While the boarding school may seem to be at peace, there is turmoil and internalized wars that are occurring inside the boys’ minds and between each other. Ultimately this turmoil emerges from the hearts of the boys, killing one of their own before he has even been out on the front. Personally, I found this novel to be rather poignant because it is the story of how Gene killed his best friend. I would have preferred if the story had ended with Finny’s survival and Gene becoming his own character without the death of his best friend to be the cause. However, while I did not enjoy the end to A Separate Peace, I was fond of the depth of the main characters’ personalities. Gene’s personality intrigued me the most, for one would never think that one would purposefully attempt to harm a best friend, but Gene’s actions show that war as well adolescence has the ability to make one do the unthinkable. The depth of the characters allowed me to read the novel, yet my disappointment with the conclusion does not intrigue me to read it twice. Overall I found A Separate Peace to be a pleasant read that has the ability to ignite new ideas in one’s mind.

Text Connections

In the novel, A Separate Peace, John Knowles makes a text-to-world connection in order to further enhance the reader’s insight. By having the story occur during World War II, the reader is able to relate the historical facts of the time to the fictional facts in the tale.  With allusions to events in the Pacific, the author allows the reader to use their background knowledge to understand the emotions of the young boys during the war. Events such as the dropping of the atomic bomb and strategies such as island-hopping give concrete details to the fictional novel and allow the reader to relate on a deeper level with the characters and better understand the author’s message.

A text-to-world connection is also provided when Leper is described as being “psycho.” When Leper joined the army, he was not expecting the blunt brutality of war and the shock was too much for his system. He soon develops a mental illness and is described as crazy and psycho. This illness came be termed as post traumatic stress and is seen to have occurred in many soldiers during World War II and even today. When the reader reads of Leper’s illness they are able to relate to Leper’s character more because the illness that he has suffered from still causes soldiers to suffer today.

Syntax

• “Noting endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence” (14).

The message of the novel is effectively displayed in the syntax found in the application of an anaphora. Knowles utilizes an anaphora to show that a tree, love, and death are all connected. Gene’s love for Finny is overshadowed by the fears of adolescence; these fears eventually lead to Finny’s deadly fall from the tree and finally his death. While the anaphora shows that trees, love, and death are intertwined in the lives of Devon’s schoolboys, the syntax of this sentence also shows that these events are ultimately overcome by the influence of war.

• “By the time we arrived there the snow had become drab and sooted, wet and heavy” (96).

Unique syntax is used to illustrate a scene of railroad work that aids the war effort. By separating the four adjectives, used to describe the snow, into two separate phrases, the author creates a dreary tone that exemplifies the events of the day. Like the snow, the boys’ work for the day becomes tedious and causes them to drip with sweat and dirt. This description of the snow is also used to convey the effects of the war on Devon. The boys feel that they will be considered drab if they do not have exciting war tales and yet their reluctance to join the war still lies heavily upon their minds.

Diction

•    “that funereal tree by the river” (90).
     In a description of the fatal accident, the author describes the scene as taking place in  the “funereal tree.” The accident that occurred in this tree permanently ended Finny’s athletic career. By naming the tree the “funereal tree,” Knowles creates a melancholy tone. This tone aids the author in relating to the audience that Finny’s athletic abilities are officially. Also, “funereal tree” foreshadows the death of Finny. While falling from the tree ended Finny’s athletic promise, it was also what ended his life in the end. The diction of “funereal tree” generates a melancholy tone for it describes the death of Finny’s athleticism and life. 
•    “For if Leper was psycho it was the army which had done it to him, and I and all of us were on the brink of the army” (144).
     Leper Lepellier was the first student at Devon to join the army. However, Leper was not able to stay in the war for long, for his innocent nature was not accustomed to the harsh realities of war. When Gene visits Leper, after he has escaped from the war, the author describes Leper as being “psycho.” The word psycho places Leper in a category where he is not just crazy or weird, but where he is mentally ill. Leper’s illness marks another intrusion of the war on the peace at Devon because the war has actually affected one of their own and the students realize that the war could possibly mentally or physically harm them as well. An apprehensive tone is shown through the diction of psycho for students realize that the war actually exists and are fearful of the harm that the war might inflict on them.

Rhetorical Strategies

• Imagery: “His skin radiated a reddish copper glow of tan, his brown hair had been a little bleached by the sun, and I noticed that the tan made his eyes shine with a cool blue-green fire” (47).
• Oxymoron: “I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise” (55).
• Simile: “I felt like a wild man who had stumbled in from the jungle to tear the place apart” (69).
• Extended Metaphor: “So the war swept over like a wave at the seashore, gathering power and size as it bore on us… seeming inescapable…I had simply ducked… the wave’s concentrated power had hurtled harmlessly overhead… I did not stop to think that one wave is inevitably followed by another even larger and more powerful, when the tide is coming in” (110).
• Anaphora: “Nothing as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last I had” (203).

In John Knowles’s novel, A Separate Peace, are applied to add style to Knowles’s work. Narrated through the eyes of Gene, a student at a New England boarding school, the novel tells the tale of the turmoil of friendship during World War II. While describing his best friend, Finny, Gene states that Finny’s “skin radiated a reddish copper glow of tan… and [Gene notices] that the tan made [Finny’s] eyes shine with a cool blue-green fire” (47). This imagery shows that Gene highly favors Finny for Finny seems to be a god-like figure in Gene’s mind. However, Gene begins to doubt Finny’s true appearance and begins to form a slight hatred for his best friend. This hatred or jealousy has left Gene wishing “to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise” (55). The usage of an oxymoron here, allows Knowles to convey Gene’s conflicting opinions that are creating the mayhem in his mind. The feeling of hate overpowers Gene’s judgment and he ends up knocking Finny from a tree. When Gene attempts to tell Finny that his fall was not accidental, Gene feels “like a wild man who had stumbled in from the jungle to tear the place apart” (69). By utilizing a simile to describe Gene’s emotions, the author conveys that Gene’s actions were not stemmed from pure hatred, but from the confusion of adolescence. Once Finny returns to Devon, Gene uses Finny as an excuse to avoid the war for “the war [had] swept over like a wave at the seashore, gathering power and size as it bore on [them]… seeming inescapable…[Gene] had simply ducked… the wave’s concentrated power had hurtled harmlessly overhead… [he] did not stop to think that one wave is inevitably followed by another even larger and more powerful, when the tide is coming in” (110). Knowles’s usage of this extended metaphor shows the reader that war frightens Gene and he will use any excuse to avoid it. The extended metaphor also shows that while either avoiding the war or Finny’s accident, one was inexorably going to become reality for Gene. Finny’s life is ultimately ended by marrow from his bones entering his blood stream and seizing his heart. After Finny’s death, Gene realizes that Finny had a spirit that nothing could demolish, “nothing as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last [Gene] had” (203). The anaphora illustrates that not even the tribulations of war could impair Finny’s vitality, but that the one who he believed that he was closest to could.