Electronic Journal #2

From the end of the first part through the second part of A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene Forrester, the narrator has to deal with guilt and develops into an individualized young man. At the end of the first part, Gene’s best friend, Phineas, fell off the limb of a tree and broke his leg. The big contributor to the falling of Phineas was Gene because he shook the branch to intimidate Phineas; however, it led to the inevitable breaking of a leg. Gene has to deal with this guilt because “Finny” is unable to participate in sports anymore because of the severe nature of the breakage. The Summer Session at Devon concludes and Finny has to stay at the infirmary to recuperate. This is depressing because Finny is unable to act in his final “peace” before engaging within the army. Gene returns to the South for a month or so before the Winter Session starts and when it finally does commence, Gene visits Finny. Here, they get into a heated feud where Gene takes the fall of the accident and presents the truth which saddens Finny in the end. Gene returns to Devon and encounters fellow classmates who bash on him and try to chip away at the true accident bestowed on the famous Phineas. Then, a group of classmates go to work at a nearby apple orchard when it begins to snow.
In this second part, some of the same things that were similar in the first part to Slaughterhouse-Five, remain in the second part. World War II is still in the background at Devon school and provides a backdrop into the mindset of the students. To enlist into the draft was the epiphany that each student at their age had to contemplate. They had “to slam the door impulsively on the past, to shed everything down.” Just like Billy, each student was going to be enlisted right after they graduated into the war so each had to consider whether to advance their maturity or wait. Also another scene similar to one in Slaughterhouse-Five includes a train scene. While working, the students see a train full of soldiers and the scene is similar to when Billy was put on a boxcar after he became a prisoner of war. The figurative nature of the scene in A Separate Peace reflects on the conformity of the war. By becoming a soldier, you became a prisoner to death, gruesome images, and regret. The soldiers that were about to go into the war will see that they are just prisoners just like the ones in Slaughterhouse-Five.

Electronic Journal #1

In A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the characters explore their innermost desires and ambitious adventures at The Devon School in New Hampshire. Phineas, the charismatic super-athlete leads the narrator onto many journeys to diverge himself away from his studies. This ongoing competition between the two best friends leads to bitter rivalries between them. In one scene, Phineas breaks the school’s swimming record in secret and the narrator starts to question whether the two of them are “even” in nature. The narrator figures out the question to this existentialist question by saying, “You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone.” Each of these characters is trying to find their “separate peace” among confinements of the school. With WWII in the background, it sets up the path to which the 16 and 17 year olds at the school find a way to engage in some fun before their hardships and real life presses forward.
Compared to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse – Five, there are some similarities between the setting, mindset of characters, and the dispositions of the characters. For one, both novels have a backdrop of WWII. Neither of them is necessarily engaged in the war throughout the entire novel, but references and experiences protrude. Secondly, Billy and the narrator of A Separate Peace have similar mindsets in which they question the true nature of what’s happening to them. Billy is always intertwined with time and the narrator is caught up being a teenager for one more time before he could possibly be drafted into the war. Lastly, their dispositions are quite similar. Both characters are considered “followers” in which they never lead a pack or person. Billy follows and tags along with other soldiers and the narrator in A Separate Peace tags along with his best friend, Phineas. In these ways in the first part of A Separate Peace, my first two novels have similarities between them.