Blog Topic #5: Personal Review

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is the typical bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel. It recounts the story of Gene and Phineas, best friends, and their experiences of their summer after junior year through their senior year at Devon School during World War II. To every other student and faculty member, including Phineas, their friendship is full of love, but to Gene it is filled with much more. Gene harbors deep feelings of jealousy towards Phineas which indirectly leads to the death of Phineas at the end of the novel. This evolution of feelings from love to jealousy, to dependency and loss is magnificently portrayed through the writings of John Knowles. One of the most interesting characters is Phineas. Knowles created a character that could not possibly do any harm to anybody, almost a Savior-like character. Phineas goes as far as to believe that there are only winners in games and never losers. He is very intellectual in his own specific way for he does not receive the greatest grades, but he seems to have profound insight on every topic discussed at Devon. One of my favorite aspects of A Separate Peace is that it was told through Gene’s flashback. By doing this Knowles is able to delve deeper into the mind of Gene and discover many of the mysterious feelings behind his actions. Overall, John Knowles did an excellent job at conquering the language and manipulating it to tell his story.

Blog Topic #4: Text Connections

In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, a text-to-world connection can be made as World War II is actively being fought around the world during the events of the novel. The war is very much a part of the boys’ lives evident through the rigorous physical education classes, lack of maids, and the many absent seniors, and some younger professors, that have already enlisted into the war. Gene Forrester, the novel’s protagonist, is affected by the war in many ways. He sees the changes around him and rightfully assumes that he too along with his fellow classmates will be required to enlist when the time comes.

Another connection, a text-to-text connection, can be made to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Gene is a prime example of the innate savage in human beings, his actions of jealously and hatred that indirectly lead to Phineas’ death support just this. In Lord of the Flies, school boys are stranded on an island without parental supervision giving them the utmost freedom. With this freedom the savages inside the boys are allowed to run wild and subsequently it results in the deaths of many of the boys. Both titles reinforce the natural brutality of some persons.

Blog Topic #3: Syntax

·         “And the perfect word for me,” he added in a distorted voice, as though his tongue had swollen, “psycho. I guess I am. I must be. Am I, though, or is the army?” (150).

When Gene meets Leper at his house after receiving a letter from him, Gene quickly realizes, from his words and actually speech, that Leper has gone crazy. John Knowles uses telegraphic sentences and an interrogative sentence to portray Leper’s mental instability after leaving the training camps. The telegraphic sentences manifest Leper’s short, quick thought process which is commonly associated to those who are not sane. The interrogative sentence adds to the idea in that he questions and distrusts even his own thoughts.

·         “To enlist. To slam the door impulsively on the past, to shed everything down to my last bit of clothing, to break the pattern of my life—that complex design I had been weaving since birth with all its dark threads, its unexplainable symbols set against a conventional background of domestic white and schoolboy blue, all those tangles strands which required the dexterity of a virtuoso to keep flowing—I yearned to take giant military shears to it, snap! bitten off in an instant, and nothing left in my hands but spools of khaki which could weave only a plain, flat, khaki design, however twisted they might be”(100).

Above is an example of how John Knowles uses syntax, interrupted and telegraphic sentences, an exclamatory sentence, dashes, and other syntactical devices, to portray his specific idea that enlisting is not all it is made out to be. Knowles interrupts the loose sentence to expand more on the pattern of life mentioned and how easily it can be overlooked and tossed away when regarding war, the use of an exclamatory emphasizes the easiness of it all. The contrasting sentence lengths, one being telegraphic and the other long, aides in the severity of the situation also.

Blog Topic #2: Diction

John Knowles creates a shift in tone from friendly and loving to military-like and aggressive through his use of diction. Once Gene convinces himself that Phineas has the goal of undermining his intelligence so that Phineas with be better than him, the tone of the novel if transformed. When talking about his studies and his efforts to become the head of the class, Gene’s inner dialogue is full of military-like diction. Gene describes Phineas’ studying habits as his “new attacks” that are “emergency measures to save himself” (55).  Knowles employs such diction in order to manifest Gene’s feelings towards Phineas and create the underlying tone. His use of words such as “attack” and “emergency” paint Phineas as the enemy fighting Gene. This also reinforces one of the major themes of the novel, the negative effects of war on the home front. Gene goes on to say that in response to Phineas’ attacks he “redoubled his effort” (55). The diction used by Knowles portrays Gene as a general getting ready to attack his opponent at will and not at all as a best friend. Through diction, Knowles creates the military-like tone apparent in Gene’s thoughts.

Blog Topic #1: Rhetorical Strategies

·         Imagery: “It seems more sedate than I remembered it, more perpendicular and strait-laced, with narrower windows and shinier woodwork, as though a coat of varnish had been put over everything for better preservation” (9).

·         Simile: “I had always felt that the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it… and then blinked out like a candle the day I left” (10).

·         Rhetorical Question: “Why not? He had made it up hadn’t he?” (40).

·         Antithesis: “If you broke the rules, then they broke you” (74).

·         Repetition: “If I was head of class on Graduation Day and made a speech… then we would both have come out on top, we would even, that is all. We would be even” (51-52).

·         Imagery: “The ocean, throwing up foamy sun-sprays across some nearby rocks, was winter cold” (47).

John Knowles employs a moderate amount of rhetorical strategies throughout A Separate Peace in order to convey his specific style. Two of the major rhetorical strategies Knowles uses are repetition and rhetorical questions. By using repetition Knowles is able to form the mentally-instable mess that is Gene Forrester. After meeting with Leper, Gene repeats “I didn’t want to hear any more of it,” it being Leper’s story about the training camp and how he became insane (151). This repetitive babbling is most commonly associated with those who are not mentally complete. Again this happens when Gene starts to believe that Phineas has the goal of distracting him so that Phineas would come out on top. He becomes obsessed with being even to Phineas: “we would be even” (52). His obsession is manifested through the constant repetition of these phrases. To reinforce the mental hardships surrounding Gene, Knowles utilizes rhetorical questions also. Gene regularly questions his own actions and the actions of others. After Phineas breaks the record for the 100 yard free style and does not want anybody to know, Gene questions, “was he trying to impress me or something? Not tell anybody? When he had broken a school record without a day of practice?” (44). The many rhetorical questions employed by Knowles supports the overwhelming idea that Gene is very much insane. John Knowles constructs his own style by way of the many rhetorical strategies used.