A Separate Peace Symbolism Analysis

Decent Essays
There is a lot of symbolism in the book A Separate Peace. The first of 2 examples on symbolism is when Finny falls from it. But what could this symbolize? What this means is the ends of sports for Finny. Finny absolutely loved sports. He played them all the time and he was very athletic and loved to break his and other peoples records. When he fell, he broke his leg so bad so that it made that he couldn't play sports any more. It was a very tragic blow to both Gene and Finny. The fall from the tree inevitability caused the end of sports for Finny.

The second example is the tree itself. The tree could represent the tragedy’s the war causes. In the book they are required to jump out of the tree. The reason is if you are on a ship and the

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