A Separate Peace:Diction

Blog Entry #2 Diction

Throughout A Separate Peace, the main character Gene tells the entire story. Therefore the diction changes depending on Gene’s perception of the situation- the diction is completely dependent of Gene’s tone. For instance, when Gene is describing what Devon School looked like after returning 15 years later his word choice reflects his impersonal and detached tone. He describes the school as “perpendicular”, “sedate”, “straight-laced”, and “stale.” It is evident that throughout the novel when the scene is serious Gene depicts it using higher level vocabulary. For example when Gene is being accused of purposely knocking Finny from a tree out of spite, he says that his voice, “releasing hush galvanized them all” (89).  When Gene is angry, in one occasion, he looks up at the night sky and describes the stars as “sharp stars” that “pierced singly through the blackness”(101). The diction can clearly be seen as dependent on the tone of the narrator. The highly connotative diction also reflects Gene’s tone toward certain characters. When he is describing Quackenbush, a character Gene later ends up punching in the face, he says that he had “trembling, goaded egotism” (78). The word “goaded” is especially connotative and brings to mind primitive fury, like a charging animal. In less formal every-day situations the author gives Gene and the other characters dialogue that reflects their age as well as the time they live in. In many cases the writing is full of colloquialisms, which seems realistic for teenage boys. By using common language in ordinary encounters between the boys, it makes the characters seem more realistic to the readers. In the end, the diction helps us to see the story through Gene’s eyes because the connotative choice of words conveys his varying emotions as he encounters different situations, characters, and feelings.