In A Separate Peace, John Knowles uses the shift in seasons to represent how Gene’s life is changing. When the winter session starts, Knowles switches to harsher diction to emphasize the strict rules and the bleak way of life. The quote “...and the forces reassembled for it scattered the easygoing summer spirit like so many fallen leaves” describes how the stern authority and the beginning of autumn creates a somber mood which contrasts greatly to the relaxed tone that previously existed in the summer session (Knowles 72). In the summer, they had been “undirected except by the eccentric notions of Phineas” but now Gene has to follow all the class leaders who try to claim all the space that once belonged to only him and his friends (Knowles
