Why do you think knowles opens the story with gene returning to the Devon school 15 years after he graduated instead of having Gene tell the story as it happens

The point of view and perspective of a work are always very important, and they are especially important in A Separate Peace, a novel that is highly colored by these two factors. The story is a first-person narrative, and the narrator is telling of events that took place fifteen years before the time he is recording the story; because of this, the tone is colored with nostalgia, and tempered with the narrator's feelings about his past. Even the narrator's recollections are filtered through his present experience and interest; at times, he speaks of the events of his past as if they were just happening, but then he breaks the spell with some adult commentary, reminding the reader that the story was written after the events took place, and therefore is influenced by his present state, and dependent upon his memory. The theme of reflection is also central to the novel; the novel is spawned by a visit back to his old school, and the work hinges upon a dialogue between the past and the present, and the relation of a man to his much younger self.