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[The Joker]

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[JackOfClubs]

I personally think this is pretty good, its the first research paper I've done for an accelerated class, and the teacher grades VERY hard, so I'm not sure what I'll get. I'm just hoping for passing.
Jack Lannon
Mr. Rust
English II ACC – 6th Period
23 November 2009

Innocence is like the first snowfall of winter. Intact, it is pure and white. But it wears away as time progresses, until it melts away completely. War is to people as time is to snow; it causes a drastic change in people. It causes rapid maturity, which, most of the time, is detrimental to a person’s growth. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles uses irony, simile, and symbolism to depict this destruction of innocence.

In his novel, Knowles uses irony to depict the innocence of Gene, Finny, and the other boys at Devon. Most of the boys believe that the war is real, except for Finny, who thinks it is all made-up. “‘I don’t really believe we actually bombed Central Europe […]’” (Knowles 29). Gene and Finny walk to the river and talk about the war when Finny mentions this. This ironically shows Finny’s innocence because the U.S. actually does bomb Central Europe, but Finny does not believe in the war, so he does not think this is true. Gene has an internal war going on, one that prevents him from always being a true friend to Finny, but also allows him to be somewhat of a good friend to Finny when he has the chance. “I fought that battle, that first skirmish of a long campaign, for Finny” (Knowles 79). After Quackenbush throws Gene into the Naguamsett River, Gene thinks this about Finny. Quackenbush and Gene have a small fight after Quackenbush insults Finny; he calls him “maimed.” Ironically, Gene uses violence to show his love for Finny. Quackenbush and Gene fight over a very trivial cause, yet, due to their innocence, the boys exaggerate it to the point of physical abuse. “I could not escape the feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case” (Knowles 194). When Finny dies, Gene feels that Finny takes Gene’s sins with him, and that creates a newfound peace for Gene. Gene bases everything he does on Finny because Gene learns to be his own person, not to feed off the actions of others, later in the novel. “The novel can be read as Gene’s movement from innocence to experience, as he progresses from his ignorance of humanity’s tendency towards thoughtless yet harmful actions to recognizing his own potential for such acts” (Alton 1). Here, Alton states that Gene does not know that he has the potential to be a harmful person. Gene himself does not realize this until he pushes Finny from the tree. This shows that the war does affect Gene, and that shows his innocence towards it.

Knowles uses similes throughout A Separate Peace. The similes provide examples that show the troubles the boys go through. Though there is a myriad of games the boys can play at Devon, they cannot find one that they all like. They decide to make up a new game. “‘Let’s make it have something to do with the war […] [l]ike a blitzkrieg of something’” (Knowles 37). While bored at break at Devon, the boys create a new game to play. They call it blitzball because it is a very scattered game, like the German military tactic, the blitzkrieg. The boys have no idea how devastating the war is, yet they base a game on it, thinking that it is just for fun; Finny does not even believe the war exists. “So the war swept over like a wave at the seashore […], overwhelming in its rush […]; I had simply ducked, that was all, and the wave’s concentrated power hurdled […] overhead” (Knowles 109). Gene says that the war just passes over them, as though nothing happens; though, in reality, a lot does happen. Like the rest of the boys, Gene does not see the actual severity of the war and does not think that it has much of an effect on him. “‘I’m almost glad this war came along. It’s like a test, isn’t it, and only the things and the people that have been evolving the right way will survive’” (Knowles 125). Here, Leper tells the boys what he thinks of the war. He believes, correctly, that the only people that survive the war in the end are the ones that prepare for the war, and are ready for its onslaught. This shows that, unlike Gene, Finny, and everyone else, Leper actually knows what he talks about and gives thoughtful insights on the war and the results of it. “Phineas […] decides that the whole [war] has been thought up by Roosevelt, Churchill, and the authorities in general simply because they are old men jealous of youth and pleasure” (Raven 245). Raven describes here how Finny feels about the war. Finny does not believe the war actually exists. Until the end of the novel, Finny says he has no belief in the war whatsoever. This shows his innocence because the war is real, and everyone else believes, though not entirely, in the war.

Throughout the novel, Knowles also uses symbolism to describe the different events in the plot. When Gene first arrives at Devon, he thinks about the times he has there, and the influence they have on people. “We reminded them of what peace was like, of lives which were not bound up with destruction” (Knowles 24). Here, Gene talks about the World War I veterans, and how the boys remind them of what life is like during the time before the First and Second World Wars. This symbolizes Gene’s innocence, as he proves to the seniors that life before World War I is peaceful and free, completely innocent. “I had never been in [the Naguamsett] before; it seemed appropriate that me baptism there had taken place on the first day of this winter session, and that I had been thrown into it in the middle of a fight” (Knowles 86). Gene’s baptism in the Naguamsett symbolizes the beginning of a long, hard year. The dirt of the Naguamsett symbolizes the “dirt” of the rest of the year at Devon. The dirt is the eventual disappearance of his innocence, and the death of Finny. “Your friend is dead” (Knowles 193). Dr. Stanpole tells Gene that Finny is dead, and the cause of his death. Finny’s death symbolizes the end of the internal war that rages inside of Gene, and that Finny is Gene’s “Christ-figure” throughout the novel. When Finny dies, Gene feels that Finny takes all of Gene’s sins with him. This shows the end of Gene’s innocence, and the start of his new-found maturity. “Knowles uses a prep school setting to show that even innocence and beauty cannot escape the corrosive ooze of evil” (Wolfe 2). Wolfe uses the “corrosive ooze of evil” to describe the destructive power of war, and the effect it has on the boys. War destroys everything in its path, even the innocence of the Devon boys. “For if […] Finny is unfit for war […] it is because of his own fundamental innocence of idealism […] that renders him unfit” (Halio 247). Halio says that it is not Finny’s broken leg that prohibits him from going to war, it is his own innocence that stops him. He just uses his leg as a cover-up. Finny’s innocence prevents him from going to war, as, for most of the novel, he believes that he war does not really exist. His crippled leg symbolizes his crippling inability to believe in the war.

Innocence is like the first snowfall of winter. Intact, it is pure and white. But it wears away as time progresses, until melts away completely. The loss of innocence comes quickly to some, slowly to others. Either way, the loss of innocence is a major turning point in one’s life.

Works Cited
Alton, Anne Hiebert. “An Overview of A Separate Peace for Exploring Novels.” Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, Literature Resource Center. Gale. Boone County Public Library. Web. 1 Nov. 2009.
Halio, Jay L. “John Knowles’s Short Novels.” Studies in Short Fiction. Vol. 1, No. 2, (1964): 107-12. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine. Vol. 26. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1983. 248. Print.
Knowles, John. A Separate Peace. New York: Scribner, 1987. Print.
Raven, Simon. “No Time For War.” The Spectator. Vol. 202, No. 6827. (1959): 630. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine. Vol. 26. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1983. 245. Print.
Wolfe, Peter. “The Impact of Knowles’s A Separate Peace.” University Review. Spring 1970: 189-198. Rpt. in Children’s Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 98. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 189-198. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Boone County Public Library. Web. 31 Oct. 2009.