A Seperate Peace

III. THE DEVON AND NAGUAMSETT RIVERS

Jeremiah Noack Noack 1

John Knowles’ A Separate Peace attracts many young readers because of its high school setting. One of his uses of symbolism is to show how Phineas and Gene are complete opposites. Another use of symbolism is, the Devon as carefree summer days, and the Naguamsett as adulthood. He also uses symbolism with the war as reality, and how is effects the students at Devon. Knowles uses symbolism as the main components in his novel A Separate Peace.

Phineas and Gene are often considered to be symbols of the two sides of the human personality-good and evil. Phineas becomes a symbol of the ideal pe

The two rivers that are part of the Devon School property symbolize how Gene and Finny grow up through the course of the novel. The students prefer the Devon River because it is above the dam and contains clean water. Since it symbolizes childhood and innocence because it is safe and simple, the boys prefer it. This shows how the boys choose to hold onto their youth instead of growing up. The Naguamsett is the disgustingly dirty river that symbolizes adulthood because of its complexity. It is also “governed by imaginable factors like the Gulf Stream, the Polar Ice Cap, and the moon”(Telgen, 248). The two rivers intermingle showing the boys’ changes from immature individuals to slightly older and wiser men. Sooner or later, Gene and Phineas, who at the beginning of the novel are extremely immature, have to face reality. Signs of their maturity appear when the boys have a serious conversation about Phineas' accident. Finny realizes that Gene did shake the tree limb purposely s!

me, something blind, that’s all it was" (Knowles, 183). Phineas’ death is the end of Gene’s childhood. He is forced to grow up when he realizes that he is living in a world of hate, crime, and disappointment. He is getting older and closer to his eighteenth birthday when he will be drafted into the war, and he finally begins to prepare. At the conclusion of the novel, after Phineas is gone, Gene says, "I was ready for the war, now that I no longer had any hatred to contribute to it. My fury was gone, I felt it gone, dried up at the source, withered and lifeless. Phineas had absorbed it and taken it with him and I was rid of it forever" (Knowles, 195). This is another example of how the war furthers Gene’s advance into adulthood.

and Gene automatically goes on the defensive. He becomes enraged because he already is feeling guilty about the incident. While visiting Leper, Gene says; “I shoved my foot against the rung of his chair and kicked. Leper went over in his chair and collapsed against the floor. Laughing and crying he lay with his head on the floor and his knees up.’…always were a savage underneath. (Knowles, 137).

call for help. This symbolizes how everyone nee

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