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a separate peace

A Separate Peace is a novel written by John Knowles set in a school named Devon in the New England during World War II. The book explores themes of hate, vengeance, and guilt.

Characters

Gene

The narrator, from whose viewpoint the book is written. A very competitive student, his ambition is to earn the best grades in school. He is a sober, contemplative character, whose personality contrasts sharply with that of his best friend, Finny. His personal conflict is the basis for almost all the action in the book.

Finny

Arguably the protagonist of the work, as the book focuses on him far more than the undeveloped Gene. Finny is a very outgoing and
nonconformist character, with a magnetic personality. Others are drawn to him as a leader, especially when he develops his creative games. Finny is pure of heart and noble in character, which contrasts heavily with his best friend, Gene.

Brinker

Brinker is the closest the book has to an antagonist. A noted "joker" and troublemaker, he first accuses Gene of causing Phineas's accident. Later in the novel Brinker organizes a "trial" with his cronies to "uncover the facts" behind Finny's accident, precipitating the climax of the novel.

Plot

Gene and Finny are the best of friends at Devon, an exclusive prep school, during World War II though their personalities differed greatly. Finny decides to create a secret "Suicide Society", with the two as charter members. They create a rite of induction by having intiates jump out of a tree at a dangerous height. One night, Gene and Finny decide to make the jump alone. Finny falls from the tree and breaks his leg. It appears as if Gene intentionally jumped on the branch to precipitate Finny's fall, acting out of some secret jealousy towards Finny. Throughout the rest of the book, Gene contemplates his act, while Finny slowly convalesces- entirely unaware, it seems, of Gene's apparent guilt in the affair.

Meanwhile, Brinker- a troublemaker by all accounts- begins to "investigate" the suspicious circumstances surrounding Finny's broken leg, first through veiled threats and then an outright trial towards the end of the novel. Finny maintains his characteristically chipper and upbeat attitude throughout this time, never even hinting at any animosity towards Gene. However, Finny begins to create a fantasy world of sorts around him through games. He creates "blitzball" after the German WWII style of warfare, pretends to have Olympic tryouts in 1944- when the Olympics were canceled due to the war- and eventually tries to enlist, writing to the Russian and Chinese governments when he is rejected by the US Army.

The action comes to a head when Brinker and his followers trap Gene and Finny in a trial of Gene, and force the two to confront the events of that night. Gene denies everything at first, but eventually admits the truth. At this point, it is Finny who goes into denial and runs down nearby stairs- and falls, re-breaking his leg. He dies later. Gene reflects that Finny's death was a result of Gene's hate and jealousy towards him, and has not reconciled with this- 15 years after the incident.

Theme

There are many themes underlying the work. One central theme in this book is that people perceive threats when there really are none. For instance, Gene felt that Finny was trying to drag him down when Finny organized all kinds of activities to fill in all of their free as well as study time. Gene felt some hidden jealousy toward Finny for this, and as a result he jounced the limb that Finny was climbing on causing him to fall.

After the fact, Gene realized what had happened. Finny was not trying to get him. Finny was not in any way hostile to Gene. Even after the incident Finny thought that he had fallen out of the tree himself. He still refused to believe that Gene could do something of the sort even after Gene had told him that he did it. It was this innocence, attacked by both Gene and Brinker at the trial, that led to Finny's death. In the end, his epiphany about his fall from the tree was his true fall from innocence, and his death, caused by bone marrow from his leg flowing to and blocking his heart, symbolizes Gene's actions literally breaking his heart.

After Finny died, Gene realized that Finny's outlook on life and other people was justified and better then his own. He remarked that everyone was in a constant mental stage of alert that is utterly unnecessary. Sometimes this becomes an obsession that gets in the way of what ever that they were going to do. In a quote from the book:

:All of them, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way - if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.

Category:Novels

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "a separate peace".

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