Analysis Of The Novel 'A Separate Peace' By John Knowles

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1. The significance of Knowels using the literary device of a flashback to tell the story in a separate peace is that you get to see a different perspective of the story then you would have if the story was told in the present. Because the story is told from an adult perspective we get to see and understand the story as a whole and in a more mature away. One thing that limits the story considering it is told from an adult perspective is that the reader does not get to experience and understand details and emotions the way we would have if it was told from Gene when the story took place. if the story was told from adolescent Gene's perspective you would have seen more of his confusion, emotion, and being caught up in the moment than we do as a flashback.
2. Although Gene is associated with bitterness and rivalry and Finny with strength and power, overall it is Finny who is the weaker character. Phineas is the weaker character in a separate peace because Gene accepts and adapts to aspects of war and adulthood while Finny is constantly in denial of the war and resists growing up. The kind of statement …show more content…
Knowels uses irony to enhance the story of a separate peace. The story is driven more by situational irony then by dramatic irony. some examples of situational irony is Gene jouncing the limb of the tree, Leper enlisting in the ski trips, and Finny falling again down the stairs and dying. "'I always thought were would come for me when it wanted me,' he said when he came to say goodbye the last day. ' I never thought I'd be going to do it.…' Then, as the Devon schools first recruit to World War II, he went out my doorway with his white stocking cap bobbing behind." (pg 126). An example of dramatic irony is when the reader finds out that Gene is accusing Finny for being jealous of his academic successes. Irony creates a theme by constantly showing us that war often times effects people in very unexpected ways or makes a situation opposite of what we think it should
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