A Separate Peace By John Knowles

When people tend to think of war they think of bloody gruesome battles, although this is one perspective, war doesn’t always have to result in bloodshed. A Separate Peace written by John Knowles is a story of two boys, who attend a private school, Devon, during the occurrence of World War II. Through the simple yet intricate whole story there are many lessons, themes, and symbols that we as human beings can apply to our own lives daily. As humans we create our own enemies due to our envy and insecurities. In this novel Gene Forrester struggles to accomplish and preserve a separate peace. The novel is a result of Genes inability to realize that the real enemy is himself. Knowles uses the characters of Gene and finny as antithesis to each other, and the symbols of World War II, Finny's fall, and Seasons to portray that there will always be wars due to human nature.

With Genes perspective of Finny being the main enemy Gene places himself in an environment of competition and acrimony. Genes feeling of needing to be better leads him to have evil thoughts and even more drastic actions. After Genes realization of Finny not thinking in the same competitive way as him, genes repugnance for himself worsens, and it leads to the intentionally injures the one person who
tried to be his friend. Although at Devon high isolated away from the occurring of war, there was still war. World War II symbolizes many notions, it symbolizes conflict and enmity. All people eventually find a private war and private enemy, the novel suggests, even in peacetime, and they spend their lives defending themselves against this enemy. Only Finny is immune to this spirit of enmity, which is why he denies that the war exists for so long—and why, in the end, Gene tells him that he would be no good as a soldier—because he doesn’t understand the concept of an enemy. It is significant that the war begins to encroach upon the lives of the students with any severity only after Finny’s crippling fall: the spirit of war can hold unchallenged influence over the school only after Finny’s death.

Finny’s fall, the climax of the novel, is highly symbolic, as it brings to an end the summer session—the period of carefree innocence—and ushers in the darker winter session, filled with the forebodings of war.
So, too, does Finny’s fall demonstrate to Gene that his resentment and envy are not without consequences, as they lead to intense feelings of shame and guilt. The literal fall, then, symbolizes a figurative fall from innocence—like Adam and Eve, who eat from the Tree of Knowledge and are consequently exiled from the Garden of Eden into sin and suffering, the students at Devon, often represented by Gene, are propelled from naïve childhood into a knowledge of good and evil that marks them as
adults.

The summer session at Devon is a time freedom and peace when the teachers are lenient especially with Finny's unique behavior enable him to get away with anything. This session symbolizes innocence which comes to an end with Finny’s actual and symbolic fall, which was caused by Gene’s jealousy and war between himself. ushers in the winter session, a time embodied by the need to know all Brinker Hadley. There was nothing The winter session is dark, disciplined, and filled with hard work. Winter symbolizes the hardship of adulthood and wartime, which intrudes increasingly on the Devon campus. Together, then, the two sessions represent the shift from carefree youth to somber maturity. Finny, unwilling or perhaps unable to face adulthood, dies and thus never enters into this second, disillusioning mode of existence.