A Separate Peace

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 timeless battle of good versus evil which. The biggest counterpoint in the novel, Finny and Gene, are personality-wise, equal to the two rivers.

The contrasting qualities of the Naguamsett and Devon rivers help to show the reader that the personalities of Finny and Gene are meant to be foils. Through descriptions of the two rivers and the events that happen at each one, the author makes it clear that the Devon represents Finny while Gene is portrayed by the Naguamsett. In the literary analysis, Counterpoint, James M. Mellard supports this with descriptions of the boys that are quite similar to the descriptions of the two rivers when he writes, “And where Finny is the ‘essence of…peace,’ freedom, courage and selflessness, Gene, until he becomes, as it were, a part of Finny, is swayed by some ‘ignorance; inside him and trapped by his own guilt and fear and egotism” (Mellard 60). The reader cannot help but relate this back to the theme, good versus evil, and therefore automatically characterizes both the Devon and Finny as good while the Naguamsett and Gene are left for evil. This is because the Devon as well as Finny are meant to represent innocence while the Naguamsett and Gene are tainted by the world due to maturity. The fact that Gene becomes corrupt after falling in the Naguamsett is explained in the quote, “I had taken a shower to wash off the sticky salt of the Naguamsett River-going into the Devon was like taking a refreshing shower itself, you never had to clean up after it, but the Naguamsett was something else entirely. I had never been in it before; it seemed appropriate that my baptism there had taken place on the first day of this winter session, and that I had been thrown into it in the middle of a fight” (Knowles 86). This quote shows the similarity between Gene and the Naguamsett because Gene’s first experience with this river is the very beginning of his period of maturity. In addition, this excerpt elucidates that the Devon is fresh water, or pure like Finny while the Naguamsett is salt water and soiled, like Gene in his transition into maturity. Gene’s maturity is ignited by his realization of the war.

The differences in the two rivers also allow the reader to recognize certain realities between war and peace. The idea that the rivers represent the realization of the war is shown through the Gene’s description, “The Devon’s course was determined by some familiar hills a little inland; it rose among highland farms and forests which we knew, passed at the end of its course through the school grounds, and then threw itself with little spectacle over a small waterfall beside the diving dam, and into the turbid Naguamsett” (Knowles 76). It is clear from this quote, that the Devon is meant to represent a feeling of security and safety regarded closely with peace while the Naguamsett is confusing and unfamiliar just as war is to those who must experience it. These two rivers help the reader to see the conflict