Life's contrasts are something dealt with everyday. They build character and bring out who people really are. In the novel A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, Gene and Finny are the two teenage boys that are the main characters. The book takes place at a prep school in New Hampshire during the 1940's. Although Gene and Finny are best friends, they are constantly trying to figure each other out. The theme of this book is life's contrasts and this is made evident with contrasting characters, contrasting seasons, and good vs. evil. First of all, Gene and finny had to deal with the fact that they a...

• Word Count: 908
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The adult world during World War II was one of sadness, bravery and hatred while the world of a young New England schoolboy was filled with happiness, routine and protection. In A Separate Peace, the Devon School acts as a microcosm for a child's life during the war, fully sheltered from the audacity of a world at war. Thoughts of the impending war linger in the minds of the two central characters, Gene and Phineas, as their graduation approaches. John Knowles" novel, A Separate Peace, addresses the conflict that these characters will face in their transition from sheltered high school life to...

• Word Count: 1132
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Through the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, one of the main characters named Gene Forester is seemingly always in a conflict. These conflicts both internal and external plague Gene until the very end. It is these conflicts that lead to the creation of an enemy that Gene is at war with throughout A Separate Peace. This enemy is Gene himself. The first time the enemy within Gene gets the best of him, it causes him to hurt his best friend. When Gene and Finny create the "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session" they decide to make the initiation jumping out of a tree by the Devon Rive...

• Word Count: 558
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

My book is entitled A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles. The copyright date is 1959, and this book contains 196 pages. The scene takes place in the Devon School, in New Hampshire. It is the summer of 1942 (World War II) and America is at war. The plot is about a sixteen year old boy, Gene Forrester, the narrator of the book, returns to the Devon School, were he had graduated fifteen years ago. He walks to a tree near a river, and there, he once more becomes a student at the school, sixteen years earlier, in 1942. He has a best friend, called Phineas or Finny, who is an athletic boy, tha...

• Word Count: 708
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School