The novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a great book for it has plenty of symbols in it. Whether it is symbolizing what exactly the separate peace is or how oddly the seasons seem to symbolize things. Comparing Eden with Devon is a very great comparison. The tree, the setting, and how greatly large the setting was were all similar in these stories.
             The setting in this book is surprisingly almost the same as The Garden of Eden. When Gene made a certain quote from this novel, "I didn't entirely like this glossy new surface, because it made the school look like a museum and that's exactly what it was to me, and what I did not want it to be" (1). What he meant by this is that the surface is something new and he did not like it. This is similar to Eden because everything was new to Adam and Eve and after they ate the apple from the tree. The setting from the book, Devon, and the garden are both based on a large garden or field. As Gene said, "Like all old, good schools, Devon did not stand isolated behind walls and gates but he emerged naturally from the town which had produced it" (2). His words by saying that meant Devon was not like a locked-up school that you could not get to and the terrible tree from Eden was not isolated but instead out in the open for anyone to eat from it.
             The trees in both stories are also a very major thing. The tree in Eden was something that was not to be touched or eaten from. It was probably rather a large one and so the tree from Devon was too. "The tree was not only stripped by the cold season, it seemed weary from age, enfeebled, dry" (6). The tree was a large one and also apparently old and feeble. Gene quoted again, "It's soaring black trunk was set with wooden pegs leading up to a substantial limb which extended farther toward the water" (7). Not only was this tree large, but it also had lots of branches.
             The setting likewise was also a very large one in both stories. Gene pondered the s...