a separate peace by john knowles sparknotes

Quote: “Phineas had died from the marrow of his bone flowing down his blood stream to his heart” (194).Īnalysis: In short, Phineas died of a broken heart, caused from the broken bone, caused by the betrayal of his best friend. My brief burst of animosity, lasting only a second, a part of a second, something which came before I recognized it and was gone before I knew it had possessed me, what was that in the midst of this holocaust?” (188).Īnalysis: Gene goes Lord of the Flies on us with his introspective philosophical rant on the inherent evil existent in humans. Quote: “I reflected to myself, people were shooting flames into caves and grilling other people alive, ships were being torpedoed and dropping thousands of men in the icy ocean, whole city blocks were exploding into flame in an instant. He always finds the best in everyone and in everything, which is why Gene’s betrayal has such an effect on him. So I didn’t argue” (111).Īnalysis: Finny asserts his philosophy, a philosophy that leads to his fall.

Quote: “’…What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.’ I didn’t think this was true, my seventeen years of experience had shown this to be much more false than true, but it was like every other thought and belief of Finny’s: it should have been true. No matter how much students at Devon attempted to keep the outside world from encroaching, they could not. Quote: “They seemed to be having a wonderful time, their uniforms looked new and good they were clean and energetic they were going places” (97).Īnalysis: This ironic description of soldiers going off to war belies the danger they would soon face. By expressing his deficiency in this manner, Gene highlights his desire to be just like Finny, whose limp is real, and whose limp he caused. Gene’s true limp, however, existed metaphorically in his soul. It was common for the assistant crew manager, Gene’s position on the rowing team, to have some physical malady that prevented him from participating in a sport. But I knew that his flat black eyes would never detect my trouble” (77).Īnalysis: Gene knows that Quackenbush likes to assert his authority over those whom he considers inferior, on account of his own inferiority. Quote: “I supposed that Quackenbush was studying me to see if he could detect a limp. Or use them when writing an essay, completing a test or doing a literary analysis.

Use these quotes from A Separate Peace by John Knowles to make your teacher think you read the novel.

A separate peace by john knowles sparknotes