Although John Knowles' novel, A Separate Peace, seems rather dark in most respects, it has a happy ending overall because bad things pave the way for good, the hero completes his quest, and in the death of Phineas ( Finny), there is a renewal of life with Gene's Discovery of Peace. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay One of the main ways that the author, John Knowles, shows us that A Separate Peace has a happy ending is through his use of the bad things to pave the way for the good. Throughout most of the novel A Separate Peace, many things seem dark, such as Leper's descent into madness, Gene's violence toward others, and ultimately the death of the Christ-like Finny. However, all of these dark and sad things pave the way for the happy ending of Gene's final peace. For example, Leper's madness that is seen by Gene after Leper is discharged from the army for insanity may seem on the outside like something dark and sad, because he is a lost good friend on the path to mental illness. Although this seems dark, it ends up contributing to Gene's happy ending of peace as Leper, although ill, is called as a witness in Gene's trial and ends up revealing Gene's betrayal to Finny, causing the outbreak of a chain of events that eventually sees Gene realize that “my war ended before I even put on a uniform; I was on active duty all the time at school; I slew my enemy there” (Knowles 204). Phineas' death also helps cause the same thing, so even though these things seem dark and sad, they contribute to the overall happy ending of A Separate Peace. In addition to the previous one, John Knowles also uses the quest and hero archetypes to show a happy ending in A Separate Peace. Gene, playing the role of the imperfect hero perfectly, has a search for identity which leads him to suffer a lot, two major characteristics of the hero. In fact, Gene's suffering is carried so far that Gene does not even consider Finny dead and at the funeral, he considers a part of himself dead and he declares: "I couldn't escape the feeling that this was my own funeral and you don't do it. cry in that case” (Knowles 194). Because Gene is the hero and a good hero must complete a quest, Gene's quest ends happily after sad things happen. For example, Gene ultimately wins his quest for identity, even though it may seem dark because he has mentally killed a part of himself. However, it is not so dark because Gene is mentally free and he no longer feels or holds back his bitter anger and now has peace. Gene shows the archetypal quest and is the archetypal hero, but his quest is not as dark as it seems because ultimately Gene is free and renewed as a human. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper now from our expert writers. Get a Custom Essay Another way that A Separate Peace can be considered to have a happy ending is that the entire book ends with Gene finding his "separate" peace in the world because his mortal enemy is killed and Gene finally finds his peace . because of the renewal of life. Gene's mortal enemy, the one he killed before the war, is his anger which we see three times. Without this death we wouldn't be able to see Gene have peace in his life which is one of the reasons why Finny has to die because they are yin and yang and one has to die the other has to live ...