A Seperate Peace Essay
The novel A Separate Peace is a perfect example of literature that involves deep thinking and understanding. John Knowles does not use obvious hints in his writing that allow his readers to understand situations. Instead he uses lots of subtle ideas, and tends to use his characters quite a bit to show emotions and moods in the story. A strong example of when Mr. Knowles did this was with his character Leper Lepellier. Instead of showing us a deeper view into Leper's life and characteristics, he uses him as a window into other aspects of our main characters. Leper, as some may say, was used as a character foil. He showed the readers different aspects of the novel, giving us a better idea of what was going on with Phineas, Gene, and the current situation presented in the story.When first introduced to Phineas, readers get the impression that he is super man. He's popular, athletic, and from what we know of, fairly good-looking. Gene is overcome with jealousy for his friend, and is constantly trying to keep up to him. It isn't until Leper is introduced as a shy, quiet boy, that we start to see the other side of Finny. Leper is at the scene of the tree when many important things happen. He's one of the many members of the Super Su
A Separate Peace is based on a very crucial time in our history, the Second World War. Dating back to the year of 1942, boys were being trained at early ages to participate in combat. Throughout the novel we follow the lives of boys attending a private school, but we never really hear anything about the war, other than brief outbursts about bombings. In fact a lot of the time readers might actually forget there was a war even going on, because of the boys lives and the activities they were fixed on. Leper always brings readers back into reality after focusing on Gene and Finny. Because he enjoys other activities that the other boys forget about, we see the difference between the boy's perspectives. Where Gene and Finny might enjoy playing a sport, or working the railways for pay, Leper was set on enjoying nature. Skiing and photographing animals, he showed us not all of the boys were fixed on competition and greed. He was also the first boy to enlist, which brought the readers back to reality after a winter carnival was held for fun at Devon. When Gene went to visit his friend Leper, the horrible actuality of truth was finally made clear. The kind, shy boy who went off to war, came back stark mad. QUOTE Readers are shown how horrible things must have been to make a kind young man insane. His experiences brought a taste of realism to the novel, causing the readers to reach deep into our thoughts and grasp the actual meaning of a situation. Gene portrays himself as somewhat of a confused boy. He's best friends with Finny, yet has a powerful amount of jealousy for his partner. He is an excellent student and seems to be an average athlete, yet he is constantly living under Finny's shadows.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1146
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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