A Seperate Peace by John Knowles (Banned Book)

A Separate Peace - John Knowles

      A Separate Peace by John Knowles is about two young boys who study at Devon School in New Hampshire. These two young boys grow an unbelievable bond but stumble across problems along the school year as it is around the time of World War 2 around the year 1942. From Finny's astonishing athletic abilities coming to an end to Gene's envy rising even more problems occur during this time. Both Finny and Gene live life to the fullest until an accident who ruined Finny's athletic career, after that everything changes. A Separate Peace by John Knowles demonstrates how everyone needs comfort and the support of someone either from your family or just a friend to be able to go through tough moments.

      During the story both Gene and Finny realize how they need each others support to be able to go through all the tough moments they do go through. One of these examples is when Finny falls from the tree and becomes crippled, with Gene's support they are able to carry on with each others help one step at a time. Another example is when Gene is trying to study and Finny interrupts him to go have some fun and play a game they created, (blitzball) once Finny realized Gene was studying he wanted to do everything to help him finish studying to ace a test they were going to take the following day. Not only that but when they were drafting people into the army they realized they were entering adulthood and that they both needed support in case they got drafted as a form of symbolism that World War 2 represented in this book. A quote that shows this is the following, "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, and afterward when you say to this person "the world today" or "life" or "reality" he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever.” The reason why this quote shows that everyone needs support of someone is because it tells us everyone has a special time in their life that they will impact everyone around them and that everyone needs help to get to that point, and when someone does need that support you will remember the time you had the support.

     In addition, during the story Gene becomes very jealous of Finny and tells Finny the truth that it was his fault he became crippled because he was the one who shook the limb of the tree causing him to fall. After this both of them become even further apart from what they were when Gene began to become jealous. After all this commotion, Finny falls again and breaks his leg once again and later on has a surgery on his leg dying while the operation occurred. Even though everyone needs someone to support them getting off on a wrong hand can cause serious problems as "A Separate Peace" shows us. Not only that but this book also shows peer-pressure because Finny calls everyone a wimp if they don't jump from the tree of where the accident occurred. This being the case Gene was basically forced to jumping off the tree. However, even though this may seem like a bad thing they became best friends after the first time they jumped and then became a continuous thing that they did. After the first incident that occurred all teachers try to help Gene cope with the situation that occurred and of what happened to Finny, Gene breaks down after this occurrence but has the support of the school teachers and help him get through it.

     In conclusion, everyone needs the support of someone to get through tough problems as one of the first ones in this book was Finny falling off the tree. Even though later on in the back they grew hatred towards each other after the death of Finny, Gene still felt remorse after him as they were after all friends. However, because of the first incident that happened on the tree Gene strived to become head of the class to cope with the jealous side of him he had towards Finny. Gene believed Finny was a show-off and that he had all the fame because of the astonishing athletics he had. In the end this book shows how everyone needs the support of a friend or a family member to help cope with any issues going on in your life or anyone else life.