A separate peace: fiction to film
"All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy." Gene remarked. (p.196) A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is the story of an alumni from the Devon School, Gene, and when he ponders back to his years there. You relive his internal conflicts and struggles which put him against his best friend at times. All of this occurs during World War II and you see how the teenage boys dealt with the battle. The message in A Separate Peace is that internal conflict leads people to make out others to be their enemies, when their biggest enemies are themselves. This isn't accurately depicted in the film A Separate Peace, directed by Larry Peerce, because Peerce chose to focus on the conflict of man versus man rather than man versus himself. Through narration, in the novel you see many internal struggles. Gene, who is the narrator, gives you a clear picture of his difficultie
Through lack of narration you don't get into Gene's feelings and his head to see that he felt extremely jealous of Finny. Gene's internal struggles and how they lead him to irrational actions are clearly evident throughout the book. The film showed a completely different conflict. In the book the main conflict is man against himself and in the movies you see boys pitted against each other. When he shakes the limb, which isn't clearly evident(through camera angles and cuts), from the previous scene and Finny's way of saying stay here and study we believe that Gene isn't acting out of some irrational theory he concocted, and that Finny really is his enemy. In the book, Finny was the only person who wasn't at war with himself, and had no enemy. Everybody creates conflicts and problems over fictitious beliefs and concerns or nonsense that put people against each other. 185) Phineas had never planned to wreck his studies though, and everything that Gene built up in his head was out of his imagination and was false. In addition to Gene, Quackenbush also makes enemies when he really is just unsure of himself. When he screams that he's suffered, it's really random to get so angry and you don't like Finny that much afterwards. Finny throughout the movie is annoying and unlike the book where you feel empathetic towards him you feel like he deserved it; from the things he said to Brinker and way he said things to Gene. 45) He builds up this protection against his so-called enemy by studying and planning on being the best student academically at Devon. The movie clearly didn't match with the last few lines of the book and switched roles for the negative connotations of the two main characters.
Common topics in this essay:
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Maginot Lines,
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War II,
,
John Knowles,
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Acceptance Essays
