A Separate Peace By John Knowles

“Every so often a novelist finds a character of a situation or a conflict that catches the imagination of us all, that tells us about our own lives, that makes us laugh and cry over our plight as human beings, and that clears up some of the mystery of our existence here on earth.”

Fiction: Elements of a Novel We can still approach modern novels through those elements of fiction that we have examined in short stories. In most novels, the key elements are character and plot A plot is a series of related incidents, each of which results from the conflicts that come about when a character’s desires are blocked.

Conflict As we have seen in short fiction, conflict is what gives a story its energy. Conflict propels the plot. In a simple novel, conflict is likely to take place externally between the protagonist and another character or force. In more complex and/or modern novels, the conflict is more likely to be internal (psychological)

Setting Another crucial element in a novel (just like short stories!). The setting can effect the novel’s mood, or atmosphere. John Knowles’s A Separate Peace is set at a boys’ prep school in New Hampshire during World War II – a setting that might strike you as removed from your own experiences.

Theme When we study fiction, we must always ask: What is this story, beneath its surface, really about? On the surface, A Separate Peace is about tensions and rivalries in a friendship between two prep-school boys. The real meaning of the novel – its theme – is what Knowles is using his characters to say about human nature.

Point of View As soon as the storyteller starts the novel, we should ask: From whose point of view is this narrative being told? This will impact the tone (attitude) of the novel as a whole. Is the tone ironic? (Does the narrator say things that he does not mean?) Is the tone satirical? (Does the novel ridicule human faults or social institutions?)

“What is so grand about the concept of the novel is that it has the possibility of capturing the essence and the truth about a particular society and a particular time in history.”

Introduction Free-Write Write freely (7 – 9 sentences) about envy and friendship. Who is hurt more, the envied or the envier? Please feel free to relate the topics to your own experiences. It’s okay if you get off-topic. Just write!