Lettiere's English on the Web -- Sophomore

Quizzes

Vocabulary Quizzes:

Crossword Puzzle:

Separate Peace Review Puzzle -- This reviews the entire novel. This should help you on the reading check exam.

Other Quizzes: Below are links to quizzes on the Internet.

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Study & Reading Guides:

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Novel Guides:
Below are links to sites that will help you understand and think about A Separate Peace. They are not meant to be used as substitutes for the novel. They only help when used along with the novel. Pay attention to the analyses on these pages. They are a quick way to see different ways some people have read the book. They should help you to start getting ideas about the book. Ignore all advertisements on the following sites.

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Papers

Papers:

Quest Motif -- Theme Analysis Paper
- Read "Every Trip is a Quest" from How to Read Literature like a Professor (Handout in class)
War Motif -- Theme Analysis Paper
Biblical Allusion -- T-Analysis

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Resources

Novel
- Phillips Exeter: Tribute to A Separate Peace-- John Knowle's school that he based Devon on provides information and photos to help understand the novel.
  - Photo Essay -- Flip through this photo essay to get a mental image of what the school looked like
- Glencoe Study Guide -- Look at this to get some more information about the novel. There is a biography of Knowles also.
- How to Read a Separate Peace -- A Powerpoint that talks about A Separate Peace and literary devices. It gives page numbers for some devices.
Culture of 1942
- American Culture of 1942
- World War II Posters -- look at these posters to get an idea of what the climate was like for American citizens during the war.
- Time Capsule Webquest -- Look at the resources for some good links that deal with the culture of the 1940s.
Author
- Essay on John Knowles and George Harrison's death -- This audio essay from NPR uses an analysis of A Separate Peace to look at the deaths of Knowles's and Harrison's deaths.
- John Knowles -- Some Biography and some critical responses
- John Knowles Obituary
- Another Obituary -- this isn't necessarily from a reliable source, but the information seems correct.
- A Separate Peace: 1942 & 1972 -- An interview with Knowles and a couple of the actors from the movie.

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Analytical Notes

Names
- Gene is short for Eugene, which means "well born."
Diction
Allusions

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Intertextuality

Farewell to Arms | Bible

Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms

The title of this book comes from Hemingway's novel. Think about about A Separate Peace fits into the conversation that is started by Hemingway's book.

At the end of book 3, the protagonist Henry escapes his possible death by jumping into a river and swimming away. After this baptismal scene, which is similar to the river scenes in A Separate Peace, Henry says, "Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligations [to the war . . . ]. I would like to have had the [military] uniform off although I did not care much about the outward forms. I had taken off the stars, but that was for convenience. It was no point of honor. I was not against them. I was through. I wished them all the luck. There were the good ones, and the brave ones, and the calm ones and the sensible ones, and they desreved it. But it was not my show any more" (232).

One can imagine Gene saying these words in A Separate Peace. The next passage displays from where the title of A Separate Peace comes.

Henry then abandons his position as ambulence driver for the Italian army and takes a train to see his lover Catherine. On the train he says:

"In civilian clothes I felt a masquerader, I had been in uniform a long time and I missed the feeling of being held by your clothes. [. . .] I had also bought a new hat. I could not wear Sim's hat but his clothes were fine. They smelled of tobacco and as I sat in the compartment and looked out the window the new hat felt very new and the clothes very old. I myself felt as sad as the wet Lombard country that was outside through the window. There were some aviators in the compartment who did not think much of me. They avoided looking at me and were very scornful of a civilian my age. I did not feel insulted. In the old days I would have insulted them and picked a fight. They got off at Gallarate and I was glad to be alone. I had the paper but I did not read it because I did not want to read about the war. I was going to forget the war. I had made a separate peace." (243)

Besides merely giving us the words of the title, this passage gives us a feeling and mood that John Knowles is trying to recreate. Gene feels the same way as Henry from A Farewell to Arms. There is the motif of clothing, and especially the use of someone else's clothing. Henry used to be the kind of guy who could easily be insulted and strike back, but now he has created a separate peace.

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Humanities/Connections

Literature is merely one piece of humanities. The nice thing about literature is that it deals with themes that are dealt with in other novels, songs, paintings, movies, and other artistic areas.

literature:

Gunter Grass's Cat and Mouse
Graham Greene's Brighton Rock
Graham Greene's "Destructors" -- short story is about a group of boys who destroy a house. It is another exploration into the darkness that lies within us.
Edgar Allan Poe's "Imp of the Perverse"
J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye -- This has many ties to A Separate Peace. First, it is a prep school novel. Second, like Holden, Phineas, and by extension Gene, hold contempt for older people. Third, A Separate Peace gets its name from A Farewell to Arms. Holden reads a copy of A Farewell to Arms. And in both books Thomas Hardy is alluded to.
John Green's Looking for Alaska -- Recent novel dealing with prep school. The Phineas character is a girl named Alaska.
Erest Hemingway's Farewell to Arms
Sophocles's Philoctetes
John Milton's Paradise Lost
William Golding's Lord of the Flies
F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise

Movies

Boarding Schools in film (The Following movies have Boarding Schools and its culture as a focus)
- Dead Poet Society
- Emperor's Club
- School Ties
- Harry Potter Series

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