A Separate Peace Essay Why does man hurt or kill his fellow man? Why are some people in constant battle and competition with their own best friend? How can one fight a war when one is not even at peace with ones self? Some questions are meant to be unanswered, others we choose not to want to know or are afraid to learn the truth. A Separate Peace by John Knowles provides a look into the inner conflicts of the mind of a young man; a war fought thousands of miles away and how such conflicts become parallel with one another. Power, friendship, and envy are only the beginnings of what drives a boy into manhood.
When a young man enters manhood he strives for his own sense of power and power over others. Gene is like any other young man; he wants that sense of power. The greatest influence of power he sees is what is happening in Europe with WWII.
A Separate Peace
Chinese Stamp, 1950. Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong ...
e-science: identificato in Sardegna un gene respon...What Gene sees in war is also what could be said he thinks about the influence of power: "it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart" (Knowles, 193). Gene sees that through power there is respect and greatness. Gene didn't take power physically but more towards an academic approach. Many of Gene's fellow students recognized Gene's strive for academic power, "You want to be head of the class, valedictorian, so you can make a speech on Graduation Day- in Latin or something boring like that"æ"(43). But most of the time Gene would try to appear modest and deny that claim. When searching for his own sense of power Gene many times came in conflict with Phineas in a power...