A Seperate Peace --- Themes
Uploaded by Matt653962 on Mar 13, 2007
A Seperate Peace
1.) War Can Change A Person’s Personality Over Time: We can see this happen when Gene, in the beginning of the novel, is concerned with his school work and when he sees that something is preventing him from it he takes drastic measures to make sure that doesn’t happen. He’s more concerned with his graduation and being head of the class. He knows there’s a war going on, but it never really concerns him much. Gene, later on in the novel, becomes more insecure and starts lying constantly to cover up what he had done to Phineas. He begins to forget about his school work and now he is more concerned with the war and his place in it because he knows that he might have to get involved in it. He doesn’t like to hear about the war and how it has affected people. He almost tries to avoid the whole concept of a war going on, but he can’t. The war changed Gene’s personality which is why I believe it could be one of the themes of the novel.
2.) War Can Change Friendships between two people: We can see this happen between Gene and Leper. Before, when the war didn’t seem “real” to them, Gene and Leper had a pretty good relationship. They never had any sort of conflict between them. At the end of the novel, when the war was “real” to them, Leper enlisted in the war. When this happened Gene had sense of reality about the war. Leper came back after he deserted. Leper started telling Gene of all the horrible things and how he thinks he was going crazy. This affected their friendship because Gene didn’t want to hear about it and it caused conflict between the two for the first time. War caused this conflict and changed their friendship forever. Which is why I believe this could be one of the themes of the novel.