Essays on A Separate Peace

‘Where id was, there ego shall be” – Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and the founding father of psychoanalysis, developed a concept that the mind was split into three sections known as the id, ego, and superego. The id is the unconscious mind driven by...

As Ernest Hemingway once wisely proclaimed, “All things truly wicked start from innocence” (Hemingway 73). The truth in Hemingway’s words is that most everything does begin as pure and true, and only through a series of components does it turn into something that could be...

Everyone, at some point, has an experience that so profoundly alters his or her life that it seems to define time itself. For many Americans, the tragic terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001 fractured life into two pieces: before and after. World...

Everyone has a specific object or place that immediately floods them with memories. Whether it be the stretch of road where they crashed or a pencil they used to pass a huge test, these items are everywhere. The memories they hold can be painful or...

While World War II rages in Europe, a different type of struggle affects the young students at an all-boys private boarding school. “A Separate Peace”, by John Knowles, outlines the emotional struggle at Devon during the 1942 summer and winter sessions. This conflict is best...

One of the main elements in both the coming-of-age novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and the quirky movie Dead Poets Society, written by Tom Schulman and directed Peter Weir, is friendship. Friendship can involve many stages, and at times, can be very complex,...

A Separate War and Peace “In the same way the war, beginning almost humorously with announcements about [no] maids and days spent at apple-picking, commenced its invasion of the school”. The quiet atmosphere of Devon was rudely interrupted as the maids and harvesters were called...

Desperately seeking a place to express one’s true personality and background is a major factor in the creation of internal conflicts. Additionally, as one approaches their coming-of-age, they are typically placed in a competitive environment that surrounds them with their peers. In private boarding schools,...

War, deeply intertwined with human existence, overshadows action with impasse and ideals with sterility. Although war results in the facade of victory for one side, no true winner exists, because under this triumphant semblance lies the true cost of this plague, the magnified suffering of...

High school is a time for great physical, mental, and emotional changes in youth. Some students experience a one-foot height change, others, an epiphany. These changes happen over the course of high school, but can be brought about quickly under the correct circumstances. In the...

As children begin to age and minds start to mature, they are able to comprehend that the world can be a trying place full of crime, death, and war. The older a person gets, the more responsibilities and problems they will encounter. Some may never...

Young adult novels set at boarding schools typically feature protagonists that encounter trials not necessarily representative of life outside of fiction on their journey towards adulthood. Rather, these texts amplify struggles and cause problems for the characters detrimental to their coming of age, presenting overwhelming...

A Separate Peace: Responsibility A responsibility is something for which one is held accountable. Often people say that one is responsible for one’s own words and actions; if something happens as a result of something one does one is responsible for it. But is it...

Although John Knowles novel A Separate Peace seems rather bleak at most points, it does overall end happily because the bad things pave way for the good, the hero completes his quest, and in the death of Phineas (Finny) there is renewal of Life with...

In the book “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, two of the characters extremely contrast each other. Phineas is a mischievous and vibrant person who brings other characters together for sports and other adventurous experiences. He was known as the leader of the summer session,...

All people – young and old, rich and poor, celebrities and nobodies – have likely experienced some sort of “identity crisis” in their lifetime. Nearly every person alive has created an identity for him or herself, whether they are aware of it or not. A...

Comparing A Separate Peace and Looking for Alaska A Separate Peace is set in a Vermont boarding school during the 1940s, and Looking for Alaska is set in an Alabama boarding school during the early twenty-first century, but despite the differences in setting these books...