A Separate Peace Themes

A Separate Peace by John Knowles concerns itself about a young adult named agent who decides to lower his old school Devon years after the war and recollects his memories of his friend, Phonies. Most of the tommyrot is a flashback about the hardships element and Phonies had to face growing up in high school during a war. During this flashback, cistron grows with the phase where he must let go of his childishness and mature to adulthood. Throughout the book, Phonies symbolizes puerility and white, revealing the main theme of the book innocence versus maturity. components Journey through his years at Devon shows how he matures and gains a bigger understanding of the initiation around him. At the beginning of the book, both ingredient and Phonies were childish at the beginning of the book. For example, Phonies would wear pink clothing and a school link up as a belt to a headmasters gathering. In his haste that break of the day Finny had non unexpected used a tie for a belt. plainly this morning the tie at hand had been the Devon School tie (20). This shows a level of disrespect of self-image and school-image that usually rash, young children have.Phonies even swears that the war is fair a scam made up by adults to get a profit. Theres the bad, theres the good Just pure black and white. He was even able-bodied to rationalize this illogical belief to Gene, and Gene easily gives in. Just wish well how a child sticks to her favorite blanket or comforting parapraxis bear to protect her from the nasty in life, Phonies is Genes way of clinging on to a much immature view to explain life simply. As Gene begins to mature through his years at Devon, he suffers Phonies for a season as Phonies recovers from his leg injury.This opens the door to Gene as he sees a newfound view point on life. He has a champion of guilt that he was the one who trounced Phonies out of the tree, but brooknot explain his actions. This new sense of guilt make question if he i s truly atrocious or still innocent. It raises the question that there may be something more than Just cruelly evil or purely good that Phonies seemed to believe earlier. However, Phonies, symbolizing Genes childhood, tries to pull Gene back to a world of innocence with winter carnivals and games games where there are no losers and everyone wins.Affected by Phonies tempting uncomplicated ideals, Gene finds himself hard to let go of the innocent outlook on life. Still, this prodding question further develops when Gene meets Leper after the effects of the war. The regular army has the perfect word for everything, did you ever think of that? And the perfect word for me Psycho. I guess I am. I must be. Am I though, or is the army? Because they turned everything in spite of appearance out (141 , 149). This quote summarizes the scene when Gene learns about harsh cruelties of war, and begins to realize that the world is bitterer than he had originally thought.Human beings endure be e vil. This tout ensemble transforms his original innocent view on the world. At the end of the novel, when Gene is of age to be recruited into the war, Gene has learned a good deal about the harsh truth of reality. He begins to move into an acceptance state. When Phonies realizes that it was Gene who had originally trounced the branch, Gene is able to explain that there are reliable evils, certain impulses that earlier in the novel. No, I dont know how to show you, how can I show you, Finny? Tell me how to show you.It was Just some ignorance inside me, some crazy thing inside me, something blind, thats all it was (191). Gene accepts that human race are neither fully good nor evil, but normal beings with ingrained impulses. Knowles shows throughout the book that as one ages and matures, one must lose that innocent childish mentality. Gene slowly pulls apart from Phonies ideals and moves onto a more complex understanding of human behavior. However, as Gene reaches young adulthood, Knowles modishly has Phonies pass away, as only to show that in order for Gene to fully mature and reach adulthood, the innocent childhood must completely disappear. Did not cry then or ever about Finny. could not escape a felling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case (186) The quote even shows that Gene feels that Phonies was part of himself. This is referring to the naive childhood part of Gene. Knowles consistently expresses the theme of innocence versus maturity. He tells us that in order to achieve maturity and achieve the fuller, complex view on life, one has to lose the innocent outlook that usually the young has. Gene moved from a young naive child to a substantial young adult.