After reading “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, I have come to believe the central idea would be to speculate before you do, and the coming of age. Gene was always jealous of Finny, because Gene felt inferior to Finny. This led to Gene doing something horrific, without even thinking what …show more content…
In the book, it talks about people going into World War 2. In Chapter 13 Gene says “The Jeeps, The Troops, The Sewing Machines, were drawn up next to…” (Knowles 197). This shows the environment they were in, it was all war necessities, and machines to help the soldiers in the war. This showed that this fear that characters were in and shows how this helps them learn more and eventually reach the point where they have came of age. On Page 73 it says “Five of the younger teachers were missing, gone into war” (Knowles 73). This Quote shows just how serious the situation was at Devon. This meant that the kids will also have to act serious, because there was no time for foolishness, they were in a tense and scary situation.. Now that there is less time to be foolish, they have been learning about the real world more, and that has led to their coming of age. In the book the students were being enlisted into the Army, and everyone had to follow rules. Even people who usually break rules, wanted to join the army. Finny says on page 190 ”Ill hate it everywhere if I’m not in this war!” (Knowles 190) This shows just how the setting of the story changed the actions of the