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Irony In A Separate Peace

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In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the author uses irony, symbolism, and tragedy to illustrate war and peace and how both of them contradict each other. He shows how much the boys are able to do during the war. They threw a winter carnival and picked apples all because they didn’t have to go into the war until they were eighteen. This helped show how they can have peace during a tough time.

The author uses the Winter Carnival to show how the students find their peace at the school. The Winter Carnival was a way for the students to get away from the school and to get away from the war. The author used irony when he said,” what are we supposed to be celebrating? Winter I guess.”(130) The kids were tired of hearing about the war, so this was …show more content…
This was nice because if there was a certain area that they wanted to enlist in they were able to. But if they did not want to enlist they were safe until they turned eighteen years old.

Lastly the author showed war when the students had to go pick the crop of apples. This showed war because the men who regularly pick the apples were taken by the draft. This also shows tragedy because it shows the war can affect anybody. It is shown when the author says “There was the local apple crop threatening to rot because the harvesters had gone into the war.” They war could affect anybody. It was tragic because people could be taken from their families and not know if they were gonna see them again. It just showed that nobody was safe from the war.

Irony, Symbolism, and Tragedy are used to contradict war and peace in, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. The boys were able to find peace during a tough time. Even though it was as little as a winter carnival it still took their minds off the war. It showed how they were able to take a terrible time in the world and they still could enjoy life. Unlike when they picked apples because the men who picked them were taken by the war. This just shows how war and peace can contradict each other in any

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