A Separate Peace (1959) is an award-winning novel written by John Knowles set in the fictional Devon School in New Hampshire during World War II. The book explores the human condition, hate,
vengeance, and guilt. In 1972, it was adapted into a movie starring Parker Stevenson
and John Heyl.
Plot summary
The novel begins with the adult Gene Forrester returning to Devon, an exclusive
New Hampshire prep school, which
Gene had attended in his youth. The sights of Devon, and in particular a large tree and a marble staircase, evoke memories and
emotions within Gene. The book then travels back to Gene's past, immediately introducing a number of characters, including
Phineas. Despite their polar personalities, Gene and Phineas ("Finny") made fast friends at Devon: Gene's quiet, introverted
intellectual personality matches Finny's more extroverted, carefree, athletic demeanor.
One of Finny's ideas during Gene's "Sarcastic Summer" of 1942 is to create a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session,"
with Gene and himself as charter members. He also creates a game called "Blitz Ball," (the name being derived from the term
blitzkrieg, appropriate as the story is written in a World War II setting). Finny creates a rite of induction by having members
jump into the Devon River from a large, high tree. One night, Finny decides that he and Gene should jump together. While on the
limb, with Finny about to jump, Gene jostles the limb. There is no elaboration; his actions are bluntly stated and regretted soon
after they are committed. As a result of Gene's act of jealousy, Finny loses his balance, falls from the tree, and severely
breaks his leg. It is too late for Gene to realize that he "was not of the same quality" as Finny; that Gene is suspicious and
tends to see ulterior motives where there are none, while Finny is pure joy and untroubled innocence. Gene contemplates his
action while Finny slowly recovers.
Finny maintains his characteristically upbeat attitude throughout his convalescence. The only time he shows any anger towards
Gene is when Gene first tries to confess to knocking Finny off the tree. Finny refuses to believe it, more wounded by that
attempted confession in some ways than he was by the act itself. Upon his return, Finny begins to create a fantasy world of sorts
around him to avoid facing the war, whose existence he emphatically denies ("Don't be a
sap. There is no war."). Finny is "the essence of this careless peace." Because his leg injury prevents him from engaging in
sports activity, Finny encourages Gene to build up his own physical strength and athletic prowess. He even trains Gene for the
possible 1944 Winter Olympics, which ended up being cancelled due to the war.
The action comes to a head when another student, Brinker Hadley, drags Gene and Finny into an assembly room and puts them on
trial to determine Finny's "casualty." They try to force the two to confront the truth of how and why Finny broke his leg. Gene
tries to deny everything, knowing that the truth will destroy Finny. Leper Lepellier (once soft and quiet, now mentally
imbalanced from his experience in the war) is called in, and he recalls the jump as he saw it, saying the two boys moved "like an
engine," as in one went up and one went down. Finny flees the room in anguish and falls down a nearby flight of stairs, cleanly
breaking his already injured leg. Gene tries to go to the infirmary and see Finny, but Finny is furious with him and will not see
him. Gene walks around the campus that night as if he were a ghost. The next morning, Gene sees Finny and they reconcile their
differences: Gene admits that he made Finny fall, but only because it came from some blind impulse he could not control. Finny
accepts this quite easily and forgives him, but Gene is still unsure of his excuse and is not sure if he purposely caused Finny's
fall. Gene leaves and recalls every moment of that day, waiting for Finny to come out of surgery to set the bone, and meets the
doctor afterwards. The doctor informs Gene that during the operation some bone marrow from
Finny's leg went through his blood stream and to his heart, killing him. Gene takes the news as a shock, but never cries about
Finny; Gene believes that when Finny died, a piece of himself died too, the part of him that was strict and regimented and
anti-Finny, and that one does not cry for one's own death.
Gene reflects that Finny's death was a result of Gene's hatred and jealousy towards him. He explains that there is a point in everyone's life when they realize that there is evil
in the world and that they must fight their inner demons to control themselves. It is at that time when one's innocence is lost
forever. Only Phineas was innocent, and although this made him unique, Gene believes it eventually led to his demise.
Major characters
Gene Forrester
Gene is the narrator of the novel and appears at two different time periods: as a man in his thirties re-visiting Devon
fifteen years after being a student there, and, for most of the novel, as a sixteen and seventeen-year-old student during World
War II. The novel is written in the past tense, and we assume that Gene's narration is triggered by his re-visitation of his old
school when he is thirty-two. And although the older narrator seems long past the emotional turmoil that marked his schoolboy
days, the events of his years at Devon are told as if they were occurring in the present, as if our narrator were still sixteen
years old. The Gene that we encounter for the bulk of the novel is, like many of his classmates, at a liminal stage in his
life-the time between boyhood and manhood. This transition is further emphasized by the war, Gene being in the final years of
freedom before he can be legally claimed by the world war in progress. Outwardly Gene is one of the top students in his class and
a talented athlete. These traits earn him respect on campus and, most importantly, the friendship of Phineas, whom Gene respects
more than any of his fellow classmates. But inwardly, Gene is plagued by the darker forces of human nature, forces which prey
upon the turbulence of adolescence. Gene's admiration and love for Finny is counter-balanced and marred by his fierce jealousy of
him, by a deep insecurity in himself, and, because of his insecurity, a need to compete with and "defeat" his friend at all
costs. Gene's internal emotional battles are the major source of conflict and tension in the novel.
Phineas (Finny)
Finny is Gene's best friend. He is nonconformist, self-confident, honest, disarming, possessed of a magnetic personality, and
the best athlete in the school. He also has a talent for talking his way out of any problem, not by deceit, but rather by his
infectious good nature, so much so that teachers simply cannot remain angry with him. In other words, he seems perfect in almost
every way. His failing is that he does not realize that he is unique, that he cannot see the flaws in other people: their
jealousy, their hatred. His "good natured spirit" is shown in the various games which he creates, in which there are no winners
or losers, but just players. At one point he breaks a school swimming record with only Gene present, but refuses to tell anyone,
he only wanted to know that he could do it. Gene says that "Finny was too unusual for competition," and in the same vein, he does
not need a last name. This is significant because it makes him more of a symbol- he is too extraordinary for a last name.
At the end of the book, Finny dies when bone marrow enters his bloodstream and stops his heart.
Brinker Hadley
Brinker is an elitist student leader. He is, in some ways, a foil to Finny's
character. He is also a charismatic student leader, but his devotion is to order and rules, while Finny's is to spontaneity and
anarchic fun. While Finny embodied the spirit of the "summer session," Brinker is the king of the winter session, with its return
of discipline and constant reminders of approaching war. A noted "joker," he is the first to accuse 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.
Brinker's name is symbolic, as he tends to push people "to the brink"; this is demonstrated many times in the book, most
obviously during the trial.
Elwin "Leper" Lepellier
Leper is the isolationist of the novel who was often ridiculed by fellow classmates. He was present when Finny "fell" from the
tree. Eventually Leper, surprising his classmates, enlists in the army and then deserts during a mental breakdown (and also to
avoid a Section 8 discharge), and returns home to Vermont. He then returns to
school to hide as he is suffering from insanity brought on by his breakdown in the military. He is present when Finny slips down
the marble staircase and breaks his leg again. His name is symbolic of his personality. Sufferers of leprosy are called "lepers" and are isolated from society. Similarly, Leper is an isolated person, avoiding
social interaction whenever possible. After deserting, Leper suffers from hallucinations, mostly concerning transformations: men
into women, chair arms into human arms. This illustrates both the turmoil which the war causes in the boys, and the
transformation that they face in the Army and the war: they must turn from boys into soldiers.
Major themes
Various themes run throughout the work, one of the foremost being the manner in which people perceive threats to themselves
when such threats do not exist. For example, Gene feels that Finny willfully tries to sabotage his academic pursuits with the
games he invents. Such perceived threats create a one-sided jealousy between the two friends, perhaps motivating Gene to "jounce
the limb" of the tree out of envy or a need for revenge. Three themes for this book are the pain of war, coming of age, and the
dangers of jealousy.
The novel also touches on themes of innocence and its loss.Devon is an area of separate
peace during World War II. Even after the incident with the tree, Finny thinks that he fell out of the tree by accident,
suggesting that one's innocence can (to some extent) remain true in the face of pain and hardship. The corruption of this
innocence, attacked by both Gene and Brinker at the trial, eventually leads to Finny's death. In the end, his epiphany about his
fall from the tree comes not from the natural world, or his drawing his own conclusions, but from other people, his friends, and,
as such, betrayal can be seen as a primary motif of
the work. His death, caused by bone marrow from his leg moving to and blocking his heart, can quite literally be seen as Gene
breaking Finny's heart.
After Finny dies, Gene realizes that Finny's outlook on life and other people is justified and is superior to his own. He
remarks that everyone is in a constant mental state of alert that is unnecessary, and that sometimes this becomes an obsession
that hinders their every action.
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.
Other themes include man's attempt to grapple with something greater than him. Finny is often described as near-divine,
morally superior to other humans. Gene cannot accept this and goes through several attempts to come to terms with this. First he
rationalizes and finds explanations for Finny's selflessness by imagining his friend as jealous, then physically lowers Finny to
his own level through the conscious or unconscious "jouncing." If Finny does not fight, perhaps it is not because he cannot fight
(both physically in WWII and metaphorically). However, by the end of the book, when Finny confesses his desire to fight, Gene
raises him up this time, pointing out that Finny's nature is too pure for something like war. Knowles suggests that by the time
of Finny's death, Gene has achieved some sort of union with Finny, even seeing Finny's funeral as his own.
Allusions/references from other works
- In the movie Sideways an excerpt from A Separate Peace, in which Gene
reflects on Finny's death, is being read aloud in Miles' English class. The film centers on a week-long misadventure of two
college-alum friends, Miles and Jack, and a friendship that bears similarities to Gene and Finny; many events in the film are
symbolic references to the novel.
- In the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris and his best friend
Cameron share some parallels to Finny and Gene, respectively. [citation needed]
- In Paul Russell's novel The Coming Storm, A Separate Peace is used as
a text in English classes.
- In The Simpsons, the episode "Mother
Simpson" features a discussion between Lisa and Grandma Simpson about the book:
Grandma Simpson: Although I hardly consider A Separate Peace the ninth grade level.
Lisa Simpson: Yeah, more like preschool.
Grandma Simpson: I hate John Knowles.
Lisa Simpson: Me too.
- In Stephen Chbosky's the Perks of Being a Wallflower Charlie reads
A Separate Peace for his English teacher.
- Blitz Ball, a game made by Phineas, is also a game in 'Final Fantasy X', in which
Tidus, a good natured athlete, plays very well.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- In 1972 it was adapted into a movie starring Parker Stevenson and John Heyl.
- It was later adapted into a made-for-TV movie by Showtime in 2004.
References
External links
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