Compare And Contrast

Although many similarities exist between A Turn with the Sun and A Separate Peace, both written by John Knowles, the works are more dissimilar than alike. A Separate Peace is a novel about the struggle of a senior class in the face of World War II, and it focuses on two best friends, Gene Forrester and Phineas. A Turn with the Sun is about a young man who struggles to fit in as a freshman in the closed microcosm of a senior dominated school who struggles, vainly, to make a name for himself.

Knowles wrote A Turn with the Sun in the third person. His character, Lawrence is trying to make a name for himself as an underclassman. He suffers from a poor self image, as "Lawrence sensed once again that he was helplessly sliding back, into the foggy social bottom-land where unacceptable first-year boys dwell." He sees his achievements and failures as alike to his worth as a person. He feels that he is a failure, yet he is thankful that, "...the hockey captain had never invaded his room, as he had Fruitcake Putsby's next door, and festooned his clothes through the hall; he had never found a mixture of sour cream and cereal in his bed at night, no one had ever poured ink into the tub while he was bathing. The victims of such violations were genuine outcasts." (A Turn with the Sun: 12) The other boys see Lawrence as an annoyance rather than an exile, while he feels that he is better than the other boys at Devon. This is reinforced when he thinks, "When he plunged from the railing he had been just another of the unknown new boys, but when he broke the surface of the water in that remarkable dive, one that he had never attempted before and was never to repeat, he became for his schoolmates a boy to be considered." (ATurn with the Sun:13) The dive serves as an inauguration into the school's social system. It is symbolic of risk, achievement and imperfection; it brings together the gap between the river, which represents the unknown, and the bridge one stands on, the tangible world where the boys feel secure. Lawrence, like Leper who will be discussed later, "...merely inhabited the nether world of the unregarded, where no one bothered him or bothered about him." (A Turn with the Sun:13). Lawrence is not in fact so much despised as viewed with disdain.

Lawrence wishes both to fit in and have his schoolmates admire him as an individual. This desire leads to his death,"...in the river which winds between the playing fields." (A Turn with the Sun:28) Knowles foreshadows Lawrence's demise when, "He had felt he was still in the air as he walked from the gym back to his room that afternoon, still spinning down upon his own bright image in the murky water." (A Turn with the Sun) Knowles uses the word "bright" to convey the sense of hope Lawrence has for the future, and represent his potential for a bright future. Unfortunately, the water is "murky" which points out that the future Lawrence is jumping into is an ambiguous one. Inadequacy, failure, and death, are all possibilities in the murky waters of his future, hidden by his bright image and ambitions.

They play down Lawrence's death at the end, "I don't think he cared," Bruce remarked suddenly. The headmaster straightened sharply. "What do you mean?" Bruce's thoughts doubled over this impulsive statement, to censor it or deny it..." (A Turn with the Sun:30) Not well liked,"...he marveled again at his own failure, after seven months, to win a single close friend." (A Turn with the Sun:12), Lawrence is quickly transformed from someone they reproach,"...he threw his small steamer trunk, filled with shoes and books, down the long flight of stairs under which the housemaster lived...they concluded that he was strange." (A Turn with the Sun:20) to someone they have forgotten.

A Separate Peace is a confession in retrospective from the first person point of view of Gene, one of the two main characters. It is the story of Gene and Finny, two opposite friends who are approaching graduation and the high probability that they will be sent to war. Phineas is a risk taker who shrugs off the rules at the first opportunity, "Phineas didn't really dislike West Point in particular or authority in general, but just considered authority the necessary evil against which happiness was achieved by reaction, the backboard which returned all the insults he threw at it." (A Separate Peace: 11) Because of his manipulative personality, Phineas is able to get away with many things that others at the Devon school couldn't. "The Devon faculty had never before experienced a student who combined a calm ignorance of the rules with a winning urge to be good, who seemed to love the school truly and deeply, and never more than when he was breaking the regulations, a model boy who was most comfortable in the truant's corner. The faculty threw up its hands over Phineas, and so loosened its grip on all of us." (A Separate Peace:16) The breaking of Phineas' leg may have been partially due to the permissive attitudes of their administrators. Phineas refuses to believe in the war. This shows he has a distorted world image. Lawrence sees himself as a great athlete; he also has a distorted self-image. This is evidenced by the fact that A Separate Peace deals with the larger subject matter of the second World War and its effects upon a group of students who expect to be drafted into it. In contrast, A Turn with the Sun is the story of a first year student at a new school.

Phineas' injury is due to Gene's belief that Phineas is taking him to the river to distract him from his studies. Gene in his guilt rationalizes, "It was just some ignorance inside me, some crazy thing inside me, something blind, that's all it was." (A Separate Peace:183) Gene has the sense to question his motivations, which allows him to better himself, or at least recognize his mistakes and attempt to make an amends. The truth is more simple in A Turn with the Sun as, "Lawrence felt dizzy at the barefaceness of this lie." (A Turn with the Sun:16) Gene continues to question his motivation for moving the branch