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INTRO: Innocence in children results from the blank state that they are born into. From the moment of their conception, however, children begin to acquire knowledge through experience. With this new knowledge, a child will begin to see the world differently, more clearly. This gradual acquisition of knowledge results in a marked change in the child, for a loss of innocence matches perfectly the gain in clarity.

THESIS: In John Knowles A Separate Peace, the knowledge that Gene Forrester acquires replaces his innocence, thus changing him in such a way so as to make him better suited to live in the harsh reality called life.

TOPIC SENTENCE: Gene’s initial blank state slowly fills to ultimately allow him to live within society.

SUB1: Initially, Gene is innocent due to his lack of experience in the real world.

QUOTES:

“of what peace was like, we boys of sixteen. We registered with no draft board, we had taken no physical examinations. We were carefree and wild, and I suppose we could be thought of as a sign of the life the war was being fought to preserve.”(Knowles 24).

“The next morning I saw dawn for the first time.” (Knowles 49)

SUB2: As time progresses Gene gains more experience allowing him to see the evils in reality.

QUOTES:

“But by now I no longer needed this vivid false identity; now I was acquiring, I felt, a sense for my own real authority and worth, I had had many new experiences and I was growing up”( Knowles 156).

“I did not cry then or ever about Finny.…I could not escape a felling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case” (Knowles 194).