The Timeless Battle
Are all people born with some unknown evil inside them or does the world just slowly corrupt the innocent as they mature. In the novel A Separate Peace, the author, John Knowles uses a dual perspective on certain characters and events throughout the novel to help support the books main theme; the loss of innocence through growth into maturity. One example of this technique is seen through the comparison between the two rivers running on the Devon campus. "The Devon River represents goodness, beauty, even purity" (Mellard 58) while the "Naguamsett, associated with winter, suggests everything contrary to the spirit of Devon: it is ugly, saline, fringed with marsh,' and it is governed by unimaginable factors'" (Mellard 58). The dualistic symbolism of the two rivers is seen through the contrasting personalities of Gene and Finny, the struggle between war and peace and the conflicting seasons of summer and winter which help to support the theme involving the......
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Approximate Word Count: 1070
Approximate Pages: 5 (260 words per double-spaced page) |