Although John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace seems rather dark in many places, overall it ends happily because bad things pave the way for good, the hero completes his quest, and in the death of Phineas (Finny) there is renewal of life with Gene's Search for Peace. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't 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 there are many things that seem dark, for example Leper's descent into madness, Gene's violence towards others, and finally, Finny's Christ-like death. However, all 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 due to insanity may seem on the outside as something dark and sad, since it is about a good friend lost in the path of mental illness. While this seems dark, it ends up contributing to the happy ending of Gene's peace because Leper, although ill, is called as a witness in Gene's trial and ends up revealing Gene's betrayal of Finny, setting in motion a chain of events than ending with Gene realizing that “my war was over before I even put on a uniform; I was on active duty the entire time I was in school; There I killed my enemy” (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 above, John Knowles also uses the quest and hero archetypes to show a happy ending in A Separate Peace. Gene, perfectly playing the part of the imperfect hero, has a search for identity that leads him to suffer a lot, both of these are the main characteristics of the hero. In fact, Gene's suffering is taken to such an extent that Gene does not even consider Finny dead and at the funeral he considers a part of himself dead and states: "I couldn't escape the feeling that this was my funeral and you don't cry at that case” (Knowles 194). Since Gene is the hero and a good hero has to complete a mission, Gene's quest ends happily after sad things happen for example, Gene ultimately wins his identity quest,. although it may seem dark, because he mentally killed a part of himself However, it is not so dark because Gene is mentally free and no longer resents or holds back his bitter anger and now has peace the archetypal hero, but his quest is not as dark as it would seem because in the end Gene is free and renewed as a human being Keep in mind: this is just one example Get a custom essay from our expert writers Another way that A Separate Peace can be seen as having 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 finding 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 the death of this 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 it's yin and yang and one has to die the other has to live. Gene achieves eternal peace and returns to visit the school he once feared when we see him in the flashback, meaning he has made peace with the..