Carla-+A+Separate+Peace

= A Separate Peace = By John Knowles = = = John Knowles (1926-2001) =  John Knowles who was born in West virginia, was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and Yale University. In t his book he compared //The Devon School// to his own experience in Exeter in the summer of 1943. After Exeter, he attended Yale, which was when he spent 8 months serving in the Airforce in World War II. He wrote for //Hartford Courant//, and was assistant editor for //Holi//day Magazine. He was also the winner of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Some of Knowles works were //Morning in Antibes//, //Double vision:American Thoughts Abroad, Indian Summer//, //The Paragan//, and the most known of all, //A Seperate Peace//.



Plot synopsis
 The story began in the late 1950's with the main character Gene Forrester. After 15 years he had graduated from the Devon Shool, he went back to the place where he spent his harsh and adventerous teenage years. As he walked by in the rainy day of November he started foreshadowing the way Devon looded like and the way it looked like 15 years earlier while he as there in the [|World War II.]

Gene and Phineas nicknamed (finny) were both friends, they were both roomates, and they were both 16. They were practically brothers, but there was something that alway seperated them, the fact that one of them, Gene felt jealous and miserable compared to Finny. Gene was the most study attained and fearful on e while finny was the cool, athletic daredevil. "Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escpae from it" (10).

Throught the storu Gene never says anything to show his feelings towards Finny. Finny had adopted to a hobbey of jumping off a tree into the river, wich was forbidden to everyone but the oldest student's at Devon. Although it was forbidden Finny did not care and did it anyway. Later on he finds it so much fun, risk, and daring that he comes up with the "Suicide Society". Then he invites all of the boys at Devon to try out t heir courage and jump off the tree into the river. Finally Finny was able to make Gene jump off the tree with him, so they did.  Gene did not want to keep feeling miserable and like a looser so he decided to be like Finny but in a differet way. Since Finny ws the best Athlete in Devon he wanted to be the best student at Devon School. So Gene started concentrating only on his school. Even though Finny pressured him to foolw him and to have more fun being part of the "Suicide Society", he keeps on with his studies. One day Finny was able to convince Gene to come ot the beach with him. The results of that trip were bad because due to that Gene was not able to study and he failed a math test the next day. So gene got really mad at finny because according to him, Finny was doing all of this purposely just to make him be a bad student. This caused for there to be a long term silence between Gene and Finny, but then in the summer of 1947 they both become friends again well atleast that is what Finny thought. Once again Finny had pressured and made Gene follow him in his "Suicide Society" and offers him to jump off the tree again. That was when Gene purposely shaked the branch of the tree and made Finny fall which caused him to break his leg. The result of his broken leg was, no more involvement in any sports and he goes home to get better from his leg but through all that Gene never told him it was his fault he was laying there with a shattered leg. "Listen Pal if I can't play sports, you're going to play them for me" (85), this was when Finny and Gene had talked over the phone about Finny's dreams and the Olympics. Since he could not play anymore he was telling Gene to do the favor.

Even though Gene never told Finny it had been his fault he fell down while Finny was recovering Brinker Hadley had gotten very suspicious. He had found out the thruth so him and a group of other boys organized a mock trial. They brought in both Gene and Finny and started questioning Gene and giving Finny good reasons why Gene coulded have done that to him, but Finny still kept trusting him. Until finally they made him confess everything. Finny then left the Assembly room feeling a mixture of things like anger, sadness, and betrayal, in his rush to get out of there Finny fell down the stairs breaking his leg once again.



Why read this book?
Well there are plenty of reasons why you should read this book: What happened during the time Finny was recovering? What did Gene do during that time? What happened after Finny had broke his leg again? Did Phineas forgive Gene? Did the two good friends seperated ever able to jump off the tree into the river again? Well there is only one way to find out, which is reading it and expierencing it for yourself, you will not regret it!

What worked:
One thing that worked in this book was all of the foreshadowing that made it interesting. The fact that his intended audience was to many people not just a certain group worked very well. Also all of the detail he gives when telling the story of the two friends while the world war II was going on. On last thing that made this book be on the outstanding [|College Bound Booklist]was that the author himself went through similar situations told in his book.

What did not work:
One thing that did not work so well was the agrresion shown by Gene towards the end of the book.

Literary information :
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Works Cited :
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Knowles, John. A Seperate Peace. New York: Scribner, 1959. John Knowles Biography.__Bio.Truestory__.[Knowles&imageField2.x=14&imageField2.y=1]4