· “My brain exploded. He minded, despised the possibility that I might be the head of the school. There was a swift chain of explosions in my brain, one certainly after another blasted up—up like a detonation went the idea of a best friend, up went affection and partnership…up went the hope that there was anyone in this school—in this world—whom I could trust” (Knowles 44-45).
· “It was all cold trickery, it was all calculated, it was all enmity” (45).
Knowles example of unique syntax effectively expresses the development of Gene’s shortlived hatred towards Finny. The telegraphic sentence creates a resentful tone through quickly expressing how Gene felt. He is disgusted at the fact that Finny would be envious if Gene was head of the school. The repetition of “up went” adds to this anger by reinforcing all of the losses that he is encountering. As the repetition progresses, the resentful tone becomes stronger and the losses become more extreme. Knowles reinforces the resentful tone in the asyndeton sentence. By eliminating “and”, the sentence seems to be rushed thus involving anger. The repetition in this phrase also has a progression of anger and the seriousness of each statement.
· “’Studying! You know, books. Work. Examinations” (49).
The use of the exclamation point in the first telegraphic sentence adds to the ferocity if the statement. Once again Gene is expressing his anger towards Phineas. The following telegraphic sentences add to the same furious tone. Since angry people commonly speak quickly and tersely it is accurate to assert that these sentences provide evidence of Gene’s ager towards Finny.
· “You always were a savage underneath” (137).
The repetition of this phrase shows how the war has affected Leper. Although before the war training he would have never claimed this about Gene, he now does because he feels that he can see people as they really are. He realizes that Gene is not as innocent as he had believed him to be.
I also found Knowles’ employment of terse and broken up syntax throughout A Separate Peace was effective in conveying the real emotions of his characters in times of distress. While I do feel the examples above help to reveal Gene’s resentful tone toward his best friend’s accomplishments, I additionally thought that the plethora of telegraphic sentences and repetition of key phrases lent to a tone of paranoia and even possibly hysteria. I believe this paranoia was stemmed from deep inside of Gene and at eventful moments within the novel, such as when Gene thinks that Finny is trying to sabotage Gene’s grade by distracting him from school, this paranoia can be seen eating away at him until it finally causes him to act with aggression by deliberately shaking the tree limb to make Finny fall out of the tree.
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