A Separate Peace: The Novel in Focus

by John Knowles

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The Novel in Focus

The plot. A Separate Peace chronicles the relationship between two roommates and best friends, Gene and Phineas, as they approach their final year of boarding school. The novel opens in 1958, long after World War II has ended. Gene, who narrates the novel in first person, returns to visit his old boarding school, Devon. As he walks the grounds, Gene passes a tree that instantly brings to mind his old friend, and he then begins to narrate the story of their boarding school experiences together.

Most of his story takes place during the carefree summer term of 1942. Phineas and Gene form a club based on the ability of its members to jump from a huge tree into the adjoining river. Since it is summer, the school has relaxed its supervision of the students, and the duo enjoy an increased freedom. They travel to a nearby beach, chat about life, and devise their own sports games with fellow students. Although Gene enjoys Phineas's friendship, he realizes that he is jealous of Phineas's athletic strengths and leadership abilities. The innocence of the summer is abruptly ended when Gene "jolts" the branch of the club's tree as Phineas is about to jump off it. Phineas, the strong athlete, falls to the ground and breaks his leg. The injury is serious enough to prevent Phineas from playing sports, and the possibility of the army accepting him is greatly diminished.

After this incident the reality of the war becomes clearer, and the freedom of the summer session gives way to increasing gloom. The war is now a central focus of discussion and of the characters' thoughts. As the summer session proceeds, the boys attempt to deny the fact that they will soon be recruited for military service. Although at the center of the summer session, the tree is used to practice jumping off sinking battleships, Phineas continually tries to distance himself and his friends from the reality that they are likely to be drafted the following year. The war, he claims, really does not exist and is in fact only a conspiracy promoted by a group of fat old men.

During the fall session, however, the teachers at the school constantly remind the students of the need to prepare for the war effort. As the novel nears its close the reality sets in that upon graduation the students will soon become part of the armed forces. The novel ends around graduation time, when all of the characters, including Gene, realize that they cannot avoid the fate that the war will bring them. His classmates had earlier discussed enlisting in the navy. A friend, Leper, actually did enlist in a division of the navy only to be given a Section 8 dishonorable discharge. After Leper's return to the school, Gene was accused by his classmates of intentionally causing Phineas's injury. Gene's guilt over the injury, combined with the knowledge that the boys will soon be heading off to war, creates a sense of tension at the end of the novel that increases when the boys learn of Phineas's death after a simple operation on his leg goes wrong. His death emphasizes the glaring contrast between the innocence of the previous summer session and the gloomy experience that awaits them.

Conflict between generations. Although there was much enthusiasm for the war effort after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, A Separate Peace reveals that this enthusiasm was not always shared by those who were actually going to do the fighting. The reinstitution of the draft meant that young men now had little control over their fate. Their elders from the previous generation, who now served on the panels that selected the draftees and made decisions about when, where, and why to fight, controlled the destiny of the young men. Many of these elders had fought in World War I and saw it as the duty of their sons to prove themselves in the same way.

The anger of the generation that would have to do the fighting toward those controlling the war is brought out by both of the main characters in the novel. Phineas explains his theory that there actually is no war. He claims "the war" is simply a ploy to keep young people from having any fun. When Gene asks him who is responsible for this conspiracy, Phineas explains that it is "the fat old men who don't want us crowding them out of their jobs. They've made it all up. There isn't any real food shortage, for instance. The men have all the best steaks delivered to their club" (Knowles, A Separate Peace, p. 107). Although both characters are aware that Phineas's explanation is only a fantasy, it reflects the lack of control those who would actually fight the war often felt over their fate and also reflects their resentment toward their parents' generation. While Gene recognizes that Phineas is only fantasizing, he too "couldn't help conceiving a mental picture of President Roosevelt and my father and Phineas' father and numbers of other large old men sitting down to porter house steak in some elaborate but secluded men's secret society room" (A Separate Peace, p. 110).

The resentment of the younger generation toward their parents' age group is also demonstrated at the end of the novel when the father of Gene's friend Brink comes to Devon for graduation. Brink's father declares to Gene, "It's the greatest moment, greatest privilege to serve your country. We're all proud of you, and we're all-old guys like me-we're all darn jealous of you" (A Separate Peace, p. 192). To the dismay of Brink's father, Gene explains that he's joined the navy but only because he didn't want to risk that "they might put me straight in the infantry, and that that's not only the dirtiest but also the most dangerous branch of all, the worst branch of all.... I'll never see a fox hole I hope" (A Separate Peace, p. 191). Both boys are not only wary about the prospect of going to war but are angered by the overly enthusiastic attitude of the older generation. After his father has left the room, Brink expresses his embarrassment regarding the older man's attitude. "I'm going to 'serve' as he puts it, I may even get killed. But I'll be damned if I'll have that Nathan Hale attitude of his about it. It's all that World War One malarkey that gets me. They're all children about that war, did you notice?" (A Separate Peace, p. 192).

Such cynicism was not isolated to fictional characters in 1942. Many remembered that the fanfare that existed at the beginning of World War I soon had given way to death and destruction, the likes of which had never before been seen. In 1940 only 12 percent of the population wanted war, and though attitudes changed drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, antiwar sentiment could not be eliminated completely. In 1942 one out of twenty men drafted by the army refused to comply, failing to report for induction. Others attempted to gain what was called "conscientious objector status," meaning they opposed the war on moral or religious grounds and could therefore be excused from combat duty. But the older men on the draft boards usually refused to grant this status. In the end, most of those eligible for the U.S. military eventually joined it, although they often did so without the enthusiasm of the older men who made the decisions.

Sources. John Knowles graduated from the Phillips Exeter Academy boarding school in 1945. A prestigious academy, Exeter is well known as both a training ground for future leaders and an appropriate school for the children of this elite. Students who attended the school in the 1940s could safely assume that some of their own fathers and grandfathers were probably involved in major decision-making about the war and the war effort.

However, Knowles and his classmates did not even reach draft age until the end of the conflict, which came with Japan's surrender in August 1945. They therefore could not have fought in World War II. Chronologically the models for Phineas, Gene, and the other characters who make up the fictional class of 1943 in A Separate Peace needed to come from the students two years ahead of Knowles at Exeter. Like the boys in his novel, these students would have reached draft age in time to be recruited for military service in the war.