Knowles Separate Peace Essays: Character Traits :: Separate Peace Essays

Character Traits in A Separate Peace   In the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles, one of the main themes is the effects of realism, idealism, and isolationism on Brinker, Phineas, and cistron.  Though not ein truthone can be depict using one of these approaches to life, the approaches completely conform to these characters to create one realist, one idealist, and one isolationist thereby providing the foundation of the novel. The realist is Brinker.  Brinkers realism takes on a very morbid quality after Gene decides not to enlist with him, do to Phineass return to Devon.  Brinker still sees everything the way it is, but begins to think that the way it is, is bad.  On summon 122, he is quoted as saying, Frankly, I just dont see anything to celebrate, winter or spring or anything else.  Brinker will scrutinize any incident until he finds a dark side to it, because, in his mind, at least one side of everything is a dark side.  Already we have the f ooting for our climax.          Phineas (Finny) is the idealist.  Like Brinker, Finnys approach experiences a grim metamorphoses. Before his misadventure, Finny sees the world as a glorious playing field and life as a never ending game. After his accident however, Finny begins to view the world through the eyes of a paranoid old man who is always seeing something covert in everything.  On page 106, Finny eventide goes as far as to ask Gene, Do you really think that the United States of America is in a state of war with Nazi Germany and purple Japan?  This outlook is a mental facade that only succeeds in setting Finny up for a harder fall.          Finally there is the isolationist, Gene.  Genes approach is austere from the beginning.  It is Gene who generates the dark change in the others.  Gene looks for danger in everything he is emotionally close to.  When he finds danger, he ostraciz es himself from whatever it is that is posing a brat to him.  If he can not find danger, as with Finny, he creates it.  On page 45 he strives so hard to create danger in Finny that he falsely concludes that, Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies.  This creates the storys