As a reader what is your evaluation of the ending of the book? What did you like or dislike about it?
As your assigned character, make a journal entry as an adult reflecting on your years(or at least the ones the reader is privy to) at Devon. What were the highs and the lows? Also reflect on the five years following Devon. This will take imagination based on the personality of your character. If your character is Finny, reflect on the lives of the other characters in the book.
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A Separate Peace
ReplyDeleteAt the end of each book the author sometimes decides to change the plot in some way, maybe for instance, they have someone move away, or something unexpected by the reader. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles changes the way that you would look at life, not just in your mind. For instance, when Finny dies, on page 185, your heart skips a beat, let’s say instead of tears going down your cheek, or smile lighting up your face. I have read other books, but the endings never catch me by surprise as much as A Separate Peace did for me. It is hard to say if I like the ending or not, because you become so attached to the characters in the book and you know them all so well, but then again you come to hate and love each character in the book for who they are. You can’t really take sides either, to show that you liked that Finny died, on page 185, or not, because then when Gene doesn’t cry over Finny’s death, on page 186, you can’t dislike him, but you can’t love him. It’s hard to say but I think I like this ending just because of the huge twist at the end.
As a reader, I did not like the ending of A Separate Peace. I always like the endings that have a little bit more emotion or something a little different. In this Book, I felt that it was lacking something, and seemed a little bland. Although making the ending a little bit more “exciting” it could also probably ruin the story, and then “us teenagers” couldn’t relate to this book.
ReplyDeleteLooking back on Devon, I now realize I was young and foolish, stupid, a bully. But I’ve got to say my highs and lows of Devon are all jumbled together. I remember when Leper cam back from war, and I remember the winter carnival. But I especially remember Phineas. Gene didn’t even cry, which I can’t understand why considering Finny was his best friend. It looked so painful for Gene when he passed. It was painful for all of us.
The Ending of the Book
ReplyDeleteThe ending of the book was confusing, depressing, annoying, but I think that it was still a good ending. The ending of the book to me, felt kind of numb. Like Gene was in a daze, unable to fully accept that Finny was dead. As said on page 194, “I could not use past tense (about Finny)-for instance,” and also on page 194, “He was, however, present in every moment in every day,” The entire end of the book, at least after Finny dies, (which was extremely irritating,) seems distant, like a dream, he is constantly making references to the past, to Finny, then back to what is actually around him, in one paragraph he is talking about the platoon in the locker room, then in the next he is talking about Finny, a couple paragraphs later he is talking about walking past lockers, then reflecting back to the days at Devon. Gene is enlisting in the war, but he does not do it to fight the enemy, he moves on with his life, but he will never let go of Finny, or his past at Devon high school.
I thought the end of the book was interesting. It reminded me of the ending of Of Mice and Men. The last chapter seemed boring to me, with only a little information of what Brinker and Gene would do in the war. The two climatic chapters before it revealed the main characters feelings and killed Phineas. The death of Phineas brought a peak to the book’s plot and could easily be considered the climax of the story. This rounded up to an interesting ending.
ReplyDeleteI spent my high school years at a boarding school called Devon. It was going all to well until the summer semester. The summer semester was erected between two of the winter semesters. This irregularity seemed to be related to the United States action in the war. During the semester I was constantly bullied by a kid named Brinker. Although his constant jeering was one of the lows of Devon I never really hated him. I became friends with Gene and Phineas, but I never was as close to them as they were to each other. Then one day an army officer came and showed us videos of the ski troops. I rashly decided to join these ski troops. Then I started going crazy. Rumors said I was going to be issued a Section Eight Discharge. Fearing these rumors, I returned home, and sent a telegraph to ask Gene to come over. He seemed unsettled by my mental change and walked away angry. I spent some years in my house and then finally decided to leave. A month after my leave I was shipped off to a mental hospital, the low of my existence. I now spent my days wasting away in my room.
Finny
ReplyDeleteOne word. Devon. That was my life. The ups and downs of my life. The beginning and end of my life. Everything I could ever ask for happened at Devon. Things happened like I would never know, from meeting Gene, to breaking my leg. Twice. Things happened for a reason, and I wish I was still there to see how everybody turned out. Gene is probably being himself and having himself a great wife of sorts, and everybody else is probably doing something that you would expect them to. I on the other hand… Look back and see my young-self and imagine what I would be like now. The pain from this thought kills my heart and wonders back to that day when Gene said that he shook the branch. I don’t know if I believe him or not, but then again I don’t know what to think, because my life is over. Things happened to me that people said that they wouldn’t expect and I can’t imagine what is going through each of there minds right now. I would do anything to see all of them again.
In the end of the book, A Separate Peace, something important happens. Something that you knew in the back of your mind would happen but never thought it would happen the way it did. Phineas dies, but not in the way you would think. Knowing Finny, you would think that he would have died doing something crazy, like jumping from the tree again, or one of his equally crazy ideas. But no, he dies peacefully, simply, in his sleep. He dies because, as you can see on pg. 185, because in the middle of the operation some of his bone marrow escaped into bloodstream and stopped his heart. I think that the way Dr. Stanpole told Gene that Finny dies was a critical parallel of the war. He says “This is something I think boys of your generation are going to see a lot of,” and that is the simple truth. There is a war going on, and many boys will die. One of the things I liked about the end of the book was Gene’s reaction to Finny’s death. It says on page 186 that Gene never cried over Finny, not even during his funeral, because he would feel like he was crying at his own funeral, “and you don’t cry in that case.” This means that Gene believes that Phineas lives on through him, that Finny’s spirit about the war, his vitality, will never die. His love of life will never dry up, even in death because Gene carries it on for him.
ReplyDeleteI was going through some old school papers today, and they brought back memories, memories that were distant as, well as distant as my memories of the war. Sort of like a dream, although for some reason I can remember Devon better than those dreadful weeks spent with the soldiers. In Devon, I was naïve, young, inexperienced, and the goings on there, where simple and useless to the war. In the war it was all orders, I had no need for the history or math I had learned at school, and it all seemed pointless. I remember my snail shells, my skis through the snow, and even that beaver dam that I found so long ago. And yet when I try to remember the restless night with the army, the hungry days, it all blurs together. There is one specific memory that comes to the foremost of my mind when I think of Devon. It was after I returned, and had come to my senses about the cruelties of many people I had though were my friends. It was late at night and someone came to find me, woke me up, and pulled me to assembly room they asked me questions, question about Finny, and Gene, and that tree. I answered, thinking in my head about shadows and sunsets, and betrayal. I can’t really remember anything after that, just a dreamy state, in which Finny died. Dead, gone. After that I returned to my mother’s house, and I stayed there for god knows how long. The years began to blur together, and all I could ever think of was section 8, the one thing that kept me from achieving anything. It was constantly in the back of my head, pulling at my sanity, or what was left of it. And then I found myself here today, revisiting Devon, just to try and bring back some of what I lost. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to regain what I had.
As reading the separate peace I was upset about Finny dying. Then the end came and the ending was nothing special. I think that the Author should have made that part of the book part of the ending. I like endings that have more emotion or action than this book had.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to my best friend Finny was unimaginable and I never meant anything to happen this way. I remember that he put on the winter carnival and how I didn't even cry when Finny died. I had no emotion at that time for some reason. I also remember when Leper came back to war all messed up and jumbled up in the head. I have to say that my highs and lows and Devon were mixed together and hard to explain.
The ending wasn’t very interesting. Phineas died and that ruined everything. How he died was very creative of the author. I mean, what a weird way to die. The last of the book was very boring and I could not believe how Gene explained his life at Devon. That was pretty interesting part though, it might have been boring but it was still intriguing. That’s what I think about the book.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Phineas and I live in heaven. My life at Devon (on Earth) was not very nice. Gene, my best friend, was the nicest to me. Although he says he broke my leg I don’t think he did on purpose. It was an accident that I made, Gene did not do anything wrong. I am so glad that he came to see me at the hospital when I died. I think it’s the doctor’s fault that I died. I guess I forgive him though because he did what could do. So then I died because bone marrow got to my heart. How I got hurt the 2nd time was because of Brinker. He made me very mad so lost my attention and fell down stairs only to break my leg. Brinker just wants to know about everything, I bet he will be an article writer of the newspaper someday. Leper was normal until he went to the army and fought in the war. After that, according to Gene, Leper went crazy. I died at Devon, but it was the most interesting time of my life.
Phineas
Brinker
ReplyDeleteRight when the world making sense it turns you upside down and drops you on your head again. I thought I knew, I was sure, getting the truth, letting Finny know the truth, making him accept that he was a cripple, was what I had to do. I was so sure. We were there, in the assembly room, about to know for sure that it was Gene who had done it, crippled Finny. Then everything happened so fast. Finny storms out of the room, then there’s the falling sound, and we all run out and there he is, laying there. I tried to stay calm, it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t be, but it was, it was my fault he was here, my fault he had stormed out. I tried to keep my head, insisting that we couldn’t move him, that would make it worse, then we found the nurse, and the doctor came. It was my fault. Everything at Devon had been wrong for me, in the beginning it all made sense, rules made sense, leading made sense, the war made sense. Then everything had gone wrong, I was sick of the war, I was sick of rules, I was sick of it all. Giving the truth to finny was the first thing I had been sure about, and now it had all gone wrong.
I enlisted in the Coast Guard, and if my father was not happy about it he can darn well deal with it. I’m not doing this for my country, I’m enlisting, but I refuse to have that attitude about it. I went to the Coast guard, but I never saw any action. I stayed at base, training, driving boats around. The next five years of my life were of the dry monotones of war, the real excitement of my life had been at Devon, and I will never, ever forget it.
The ending of the book was very interesting. Gene and Brinker went into war. Gene went into the Air force and Brinker into the Coast Guard. I knew that Gene would end up going to war because I think that he thought that he needed to finish what Finny wanted the whole time. I really liked the ending because it really sums things up. A tribute is payed to Finny by sending everybody to war.
ReplyDeleteWell the story was really good I thought until it had reached the ending chapter. The ending chapter from12 to 13 really made me not dislike it, but not that I don’t like the book anymore it is just that it made me disappointed. I was ready for the sort of summary through Genes eyes and reflect on his and Finny’s past. But instead Gene decides to not really even care really, well he might of cared but he didn’t show enough care I thought. What I depicted from the last chapter is Gene just left for the war and leave Finny in the past. Which isn’t a bad thing, because you cant just bring him back and you have to forget about him sometime. But I think it was too soon and it wasn’t a sad ending which I was thinking and it wasn’t a happy ending it was just mutual ending. How Gene goes into the was that is just such a bad ending, He saw what happened to Leper so he just had to go too which just makes it a boring and disappointing ending.
ReplyDeleteAs a reader I was disappointed with the ending of the book. It just kind of stopped, and there was nothing that just really stated the ending. I was really upset that Finny had to die and I think that some of the reactions of his peers were interesting. Overall, I would have liked for the ending to ave been different.
ReplyDeleteGene.
Looking back at my years at Devon many things had happened. I learned many things and I think my experience there matured me. Phineas had been my best friend, and the things that happened to him were unimaginable, I still don't understand why I did the things I did to him. Then the war was going on as well, I remember so vividly what had happened to Leper. So there was Leper, going crazy, and Finny dying. I didn't even cry. But there were also many highs at Devon, like the summer. But every time the summer faded, everything just seemed to go downhill.
I entered the Air Force. I felt like I had too. Finny tried to enlist but couldn't. I had to go to war for him. I had to fight for him. I met Brinker's dad. He was not very happy about him going into the coast guard but he let him go. I didn't cry when Finny died. I couldn't. It felt as if a part of me had died. Half of me was gone. We made each other. Without me, he wouldn't have been how he was or where he was. Without him I would have been a person with no adventurous traits. I thank him for that.
ReplyDeleteDuring my years at Devon I wanted to join the as soon as possible. But I soon found out that it was a bad idea. When Leper came back from the war he went completely ballistic. I got angry at him a lot which I think was just an excuse to be scared to join the war. Soon I opposed to joining the war I was afraid of death. I didn’t want to die in a war. My dad pushed me to go into the war. But I didn’t want too. I didn’t want to lose my friend Gene.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I remember about Devon is how Gene jousted the limb of the tree just so he could be better then Finny. Gene ended up killing him in the end, you could say. From what I think is Gene wanted all the glory and at that second he took it way to far. Finny then fell down the marble steps that was the last place Finny would ever be is on those steps. I will always remember those marble steps where Finny broke his leg in which led him to his casket.
Gene then left for the war right after he joined the Air Force. I couldn’t imagine Gene in the war really as for none of us. I could imagine no one in the war. Although I Joined myself.
The ending of the book was not to my satisfaction. It seems that the end cut off suddenly and abruptly. Also there really was no climax at the end and was relatively unexciting. The author poorly placed the climax and did not end the book with a bang, in my opinion. The ending sort of reminded me of the book Of Mice and Men.
ReplyDeleteOnce I had finally got into my dream school it seemed that it didn’t live up to my expectations. The curriculum was great but my peers weren’t making it easy, one in particular was Brinker. Sure I had friends, but it is hard to escape your roommate, we had no choice but to get along. The start of my summer trimester seemed to coincide with the war. The air about Devon seemed to change with the seasons as the war hit. A sullen mood washed over the young men attending. On a snowy day I saw the ski troops and wanted to enlist, at the time war was glorified for me, a sense of honor. In the training I started to lose my mind, things were not what they seemed, I had heard tale of a section 8 but I didn’t want to believe it. I was sent home and I telegraphed my friend Gene to see me. He didn’t take my change of sanity well and decided to leave. After years of living in my home I was sent to a mental hospital where I now spend every day, eating the same food and following the same schedule. If I wasn’t mad before I definitely am now. To me this “hospital” isn’t meant to build you up but tear you down.
I was disappointed with the end of the book because is seemed to me that it ended suddenly. It also seemed like he tried to get rid of characters like Finny dieing on page 185 from a broken leg and having Leper become psychotic from the war. In the end Brinker went into the Coast Guard and Gene went into the Air Force then the book was over. The only reason Brinker went into the Coast Guard was because his dad pressured him to. Gene went into the Air Force because I think there wasn’t much left for him at Devon, Finny’s dead and Lepers in a mental hospital and his last friend went into the Coast Guard.
ReplyDeleteThe ending of the book was yet strange and also sad. I believe that what Gene is trying to tell us is that Finny was his enemy but Finny never hated anyone. A quote from the book was that “my war ended before I even put on my uniform… I killed my enemy {at school}. Only… Phinease never hated anyone.” It is strange to think that Gene would say that, I know that gene doesn’t mean to say that Finny was his enemy but he is feeling hatred for doing that to Finny. The main point in the ending of the book is that Gene knows he is not going to go back there for fighting again so he decides to join the air force. Brinker joins the coast guard when he leaves but everyone splits up yet not seeing each other for a while. It wasn’t right that the author put that Finny was Gene’s enemy and it also sounded like that Gene tried to kill Finny. I agree on that the reason Gene is not coming back is because he doesn’t want to have that kind of situation to happen again.
ReplyDeleteThere have been many things that happened to me and also to our lost one, Finny. Many miss him including me. These years at Devon have impacted me a lot because I have seen thing like Lenny getting mental problems now and how one incident could impact someone so much like killing them. my theory on how gene is feeling is that he is not doing so well because he believes that he did just kill one of his enemy’s/friends. I cant believe that Finny just died because he was one of my closest friends and he liked everyone at the camp and he did nothing wrong. He will be in our hearts forever. I think that I am going to do what Gene is doing. Not to come back to this place because I cant take anymore hatred and people dieing and people that got hurt.
At the end of A Separate Peace, Gene reconnects with the beginning, referencing certain events from a future, adult perspective in an overarching manner. As an author, Knowles attempts to reconnect to his concept of a "separate peace" created for his high-school aged characters, on the brink of war. Repeatedly, it is stated that Gene seemingly avoids war, a notion uttered frequently by Knowles. The last paragraph: "All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way--if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy." This shows a certain thought of doubt from Gene, reverberating to the enemy being non-existent in his separate peace.
ReplyDeleteJournal Entry:
Looking back, I suppose what I did was not courageous, or glorious, but rather, smart. I guess that I have no great stories to tell my children, no tales of war. I have the coast guard. Gene, even, in his service, appears more important, or glorious, even to my own father. With Phineas dead, he decided that was best for him. He had served his duty to Finny, now he needed to serve his country. I, however, felt dull and disheartened. The last five years have been spent, a waste, serving no one, doing no greatness owed to my nation. Rather, five years of remembering high school, a high school that came down in flames to Gene, a high school that meant everything in his remaining sanity to Leper, a high school that meant an ends to a means for Finny and a high school that I have had to remember forever.
The Ending of A Separate Peace
ReplyDeleteThe ending of the book was surprising. Finny's death however surprising it was fit the story line. In the beginning of the book when Gene walk into a room. He mentioned the marble stairs. At the time I didn't think much of it but then looking back i saw the importance of them. The author had given some surprises in the book like what happened to Leper but the ending was the most unexpected thing. In truth I liked the ending even though finny died.
Finny
My last year a Devon was full of surprises. Leper being the first enlist in the war was one surprise. I was sure in would be me or Brinker to be the first ones to enlist. Of course that was before my leg and the tree. Before I had been so energetic about the war but now that i can't enlist the war should never have come. i will be the only one left at Devon once people get the courage to enlist. What Gene told me about Leper i don't believe it but then i saw him. What had messed with Leper. I knew him as innocent but i could tell that was gone when i saw him for myself. Then there was the the trial with Brinker. Why did that have to happen. Brinker tried to prove that Gene did jounce the limb that made me fall. i couldn't take it. It was just to much to handle. Gene was my best friend he couldn't have. Still Brinker had shown that it was true. Gene had tried to tell me but i could believe him at the time. I still can't believe him. I couldn't take it and i had to get out of that place. In my hurry I fell down the steps. Breaking my leg again. This time i didn't survive it. I died. Still my last year at Devon i will never forget. Most of all i will never forget the people i knew at my last year a Devon.