Irony In A Separate Peace

This story begins in 1942, during World War ll. Two close friends are at an all boys summer school called Devon located in New Hampshire. This story explores morality, restraint, and the loss of innocence through the narrator, Gene. In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace the two main characters, Gene and Phineas, are drawn together in a tight friendship despite the war going on, Gene’s jealousy of Phineas, and how different the two characters are.
The war affected everyone at Devon by the end of the story no matter how hard they tried to ignore it. In the story Gene states “We reminded them of what peace was like, of lives which were not bound up with destruction” (Page 17). By saying this Gene means that the war had not affected them yet. They were wild and careless which was the whole purpose for the war, to keep the peace in the world. Throughout the story Phineas keeps questioning if there even is a real war, but at the end of
Phineas is an outgoing, charming, and adventurous character in the story. On the other hand Gene is the quiet, deeply insecure, and impulsive narrator of the story. The irony in this whole story is how these two totally different people are best friends in the story. These two characters are opposites, but they are drawn together in a tight bond. Gene may have had an obsession with Phineas throughout the story, but Phineas wasn’t aware because he believed it was just their friendship.
In this story, the reader would classify Phineas and Gene’s relationship as a real and true friendship. Despite Gene’s jealousy of Phineas and the major differences between the two characters, they still find a way to overcome the obstacles that could possibly jeopardize their special bond. A Separate Peace is not necessarily about overcoming the hardships of knowing there is a war going on. It really refers to the peace which Gene must make within himself and the internal struggles of the other