Gene's Hero Journey in John Knowles' A Separate Peace

Throughout A Separate Peace, it's most recognizable familiarity was that the main character, Gene Forrester, followed an intellectual odyssey that foreshadowed the Hero Journey archetypal pattern. Undergone Gene's reliving experience of his days at Devon School, it was most obvious that he began in his own, known world where he was in control of all around him and then as tests and trials of his self-composure surfaced, Gene transformed into holding a better understanding of himself through his spiritual healing and return to the "new" world. Thus, due to Gene Forrester's succession of his intellectual odyssey, A Separate Peace had a high applicabilty of the Hero Journey archetype.
With knowledge of Joseph Campbell's form and ideas of the Hero Journey archetype, there was a clear appliance of it to Gene's intellectual odyssey in A Separate Peace. Similarily to his first stage: a beginning in the known, safe world, we are first encountered with Gene, as a light-hearted, sixteen-ye...