A Separate Peace Essay

Submitted By Danny-Feeney
Words: 1220
Pages: 5
Open Document
Daniel Feeney

Mrs. Shapiro
English 1 CPE
14 January 2015
Changes At Devon In the novel A Separate Peace, the main characters face many times of war and peace and have they have to make hard decisions to stay strong. These decisions changed the boys and everyone at the Devon either for the better or for the worse. Some of the times would be when Phineas fell from the tree, the winter carnival or when Phineas passed away at the end of the book. These times shaped one place in particular: Devon, the boy’s school, was the main setting for these events during the year 1943. During the novel, the boy’s prep school has a very significant change from the beginning to the end of the novel because of not only a loss of innocence but because of a major change in character. At Devon many changes occur, such as the time when the news of Phineas’ fall from the tree. When finny fell from the tree there was a “break” that came with it. This is told when Gene said “Eventually a fact emerged; it was one of his legs, which had been “shattered.”(28) What Gene means by “shattered” is the literal sense that his leg was broken. But what the author, john Knowles was trying to say was that the peace at Devon was shattered because Phineas represents peace and when he was broken the peace was broken. Later when Gene said “Still it had come to an end, in the last long rays of daylight at the tree, when Phineas fell “. (36) He felt nothing but guilty about jouncing the limb to make Phineas and he couldn’t get over how peace was shattered. Later when Phineas was sent to the infirmary then home at the end of the summer session, which was peaceful, war moves in with the winter session because Phineas isn’t at Devon. This is show when the fight between Gene and Quackenbush happened. “Quackenbush had clamped his arm in some kind of tight wrestling grip around my neck, and I was glad in this moment not to be a cripple. (39)” another way that it is shown that war has moved in is when Gene says, “In the same way the war, beginning almost humorously with announcements about maids and days spent at apple-picking, commenced its invasion of the school. (47)” this quote made by Gene shows how he is comparing the War making its “invasion of the school” and how close the war is even though it is actually very far from them. This was one way that Devon majorly changed. Even after Phineas’ fall Devon still changes in major way like when Phineas organizes the winter carnival. This is shown when Gene talks about Phineas at the winter carnival “Phineas, during one of Chet’s Spanish inventions, to climb onto the Prize Table and with only one leg to create a droll dance among the prizes. (72)” this quote shows that now that Phineas was back, the peace and fun was back. Another way to interpret this quote would be that when Phineas came back, even though his leg was in a cast, the peace was still there at Devon and the winter carnival was an effort to bring back peace to Devon. This is shown even more when Gene says “I jerked the jug to my mouth and took a huge gulp of cider in relief, and the violence latent in the day drifted away. (72)” I think that this quote hits the bull’s-eye on the claim that peace was brought back to Devon when the winter carnival was organized by Phineas. On the flipside, when the news of leper comes in the form of a telegram which tells Gene to go to the Christmas Location. When Gene gets there, him and leper get into an argument about the war and it leads to violence. “Still laughing, ‘like that time you crippled him for life.’ 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.’(78)” this quote shows how leper brought turmoil and fighting because of his ignorance and when he brought up Phineas’ fall blaming it on Gene, a sense of war filled the room. But when Leper’s
Show More

Related Documents: A Separate Peace Essay

ASP Essay

The first aspect that comes to mind when we think of an essay could be anything, however, it is definitely not sarcasm;a professional work that begins with sarcasm is a rarity. Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place is one occurrence of these phenomena, in which her acrid tne and biting contempt ally to create a unique argument against colonization In her essay, A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid, an author from Antigua, discusses how her country has gotten worse since experiencing British colonialism. In the essay Jamaica Kincaid describes how British…

Words 815 - Pages 4

ASP Essay

Shauna Zhou Ms. Atnip English 2 Period 3 15 October 2014 A Good Friendship Needs Honesty A good friendship needs honesty. Friendship between the main characters, Gene and Phineas (Finny), during World War II is the main string in A Separate Peace by John Knowles. They do not have a normal friendship because Gene is jealous of Finny and wants to be like him, even though Finny regards Gene as his best friend. However, their friendship becomes worse after Finny falls down the tree because Gene bounces…

Words 736 - Pages 3

asp rep Essays

SYNTHESIS OF ASPIRIN Aim: To prepare a sample of the common analgesic aspirin from salicylic acid and acetic anhydride, test its purity and examine its (IR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectra (MS). Abstract: The goal of this experiment was to synthesize aspirin. In this experiment aspirin, also known as acetylsalicylic acid was synthesized from salicylic acid and acetic anhydride. In the reaction the hydroxyl group on the benzene ring in salicylic acid reacted with acetic anhydride…

Words 387 - Pages 2

ASP Journals COMPLETE Essay

Journal Entries Chapter 1: Gene Forrester, the narrator of the story, returns to the Devon School in New Hampshire, fifteen years after being a student there. He takes note on the school looking so museum like and decides to visit two spots on campus that he associates closely with the fear he had when he was a studen there, in the 1940's , around the time of World War Two. The marble staircase being the first one and the big tree next to the river on campus. From there he goes into a flash…

Words 1733 - Pages 7

High School and Students Essay

matter the income status is provide high-quality education. However, the academic performance in lower-income areas says otherwise. The funds for Latino schools are being misused. The funds should be put into ASP that provide them the correct educational path. The education support for ASP can provide Latino students the educational opportunities they need to succeed in life. Increased support for afterschool programs (ASP's) will not only benefit Latino children who comprise over 50% of all K-12…

Words 3519 - Pages 15

Lit Review Essay

Review Sample Literature Review Sampl e Literature Review in Pol itic al Sc ienc e Formal Constitutional Scholarship on the American Presidency: A Literature Review A literature review (also known as a literature survey or bibliographic essay) is a common assignment across the disciplines. For more information on how to approach this task, see our handout on Writing Literature Reviews. For over three decades, scholarship on the American presidency has taken place beneath the shadow of…

Words 7064 - Pages 29

Essay about arranged marriage

exactly what their children want. They will most likely choose someone who will look out for their own needs rather than their children’s. Over the years, arranged marriages have issued to be more like a deal than a nice tradition. According to the essay “Arranged Marriage: Advantages & Disadvantages” from Study Mode, they said “Arranged marriages tend to have a much lower divorce rate than marriages based on romantic love.” They said that some reasons for that includes the precedent cultural compatibility…

Words 841 - Pages 4

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper Notes/Research Documents http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/index.html Dr. L. Kit Wheeler’s Website of Literary definitions Manuscripts from the Gothic period of art likewise have strange monsters and fantastical creatures depicted in the margins of the page, and elaborate vine-work or leaf-work painted along the borders. The term has come to be used much more loosely to refer to gloomy or frightening literature. Contrast with horror story, Gothic literature and Gothic novel…

Words 8493 - Pages 34

Essay on Diving at the 2007 Pan American Games and Female Surfers

Paola Guerra English 1010 September 8, 2014 Guerra1 Surfeminism: Changing The Media Director, writer,and producer, Sarah Lee, in her essay documentary, Flux: Redefining Women’s Surfing(2013), addressed sexism in the surfing world through the use of a rhetorical appeal, authorial intrusion, and her visual aids. Lees purpose is to bring forth the problems circling the surfing industry, problems such as; the media sexualizing female surfers , and not presenting women as athletes…

Words 940 - Pages 4

Conventions And Expectations Of Lindenwood History

Italicize (or underline) – Italicize titles of books, magazines, newspapers, and other works; television programs, movie titles, software; names of ships and other craft; court cases; and foreign words. Put titles of articles, chapters, and essays in quotation marks. Passive voice – Avoid it since it is usually less informative than the active voice. Bob Dole was defeated in the 1996 presidential election. (By whom?) Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in the 1996 presidential election.…

Words 1951 - Pages 8