A Separate Peace Themes

A Separate peace of mind by John Knowles concerns itself astir(predicate) a newborn adult named gene who decides to catch his old civilise Devon age aft(prenominal) the war and recollects his memories of his friend, Phonies. Most of the story is a flashback about the hardships comp adeptnt and Phonies had to face emergence up in high school during a war. During this flashback, element grows by dint of the phase angle where he must allow go of his childishness and mature to adulthood. Throughout the hold in, Phonies symbolizes childhood and innocence, revealing the main theme of the book innocence versus maturity. components Journey through his years at Devon tapers how he matures and gains a larger understanding of the domain of a function around him. At the beginning of the book, both constituent and Phonies were young at the beginning of the book. For example, Phonies would wear intercept clo affaire and a school draw and quarter as a belt to a headmasters g athering. In his haste that morning Finny had non unexpected used a impound in for a belt. But this morning the attracter at hand had been the Devon School tie (20). This fates a level of disrespect of self-image and school-image that ordinarily rash, young children have.Phonies even believes that the war is retri scarcelyive a scam made up by adults to get a profit. Theres the bad, in that respects the keenish full pure black and white. He was even able to rationalize this intuitive belief to factor, and Gene easily gives in. Just like how a child sticks to her darling blanket or comforting teddy bear bear to protect her from the nasty in livelihood, Phonies is Genes way of clinging on to a much immature setting to apologize life simply. As Gene begins to mature through his years at Devon, he loses Phonies for a while as Phonies recovers from his leg injury.This opens the doorway to Gene as he sees a new tantrum point on life. He has a sense of ungodliness tha t he was the one who trounced Phonies out of the tree, but cannot explain his actions. This new sense of wrong make motion if he is in virtue evil or still needy. It raises the question that there may be nighthing much than Just cruelly evil or purely good that Phonies seemed to believe earlier. However, Phonies, symbolize 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 allure simple 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 army has the meliorate word for everything, did you ever think of that? And the utter(a) word for me Psycho. I guess I am. I must be. Am I though, or is the army? Because they turned everything privileged 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 can be evil. This completely 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 intimate much 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 certain(a) evils, certain impulses that earlier in the novel. No, I dont lie with 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 creation are neither to the full good nor evil, but normal beings with natural impulses. Knowles shows passim the book that as one ages and matures, one must lose that innocent callow mentality. Gene slowly pulls a vary from Phonies ideals and m oves onto a more complex understanding of gentlemans gentleman behavior. However, as Gene reaches young adulthood, Knowles smartly 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 grouse then or ever about Finny. could not escape a felling that this was my give birth 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 fleeceable childhood part of Gene. Knowles consistently expresses the theme of innocence versus maturity. He tells us that in order to hand 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 developed young adult.