A Separate Peace
A Separate Peace (1959) is a novel written by John Knowles set in a school named Devon in New England during World War II. The book explores themes of hate, vengeance and guilt. In 1972 it was adapted into a movie starring Parker Stevenson and John Heyl.
.jpg?lang=en)
Characters
Gene Forrester
Gene Forrester is the narrator of the book. He is both the protagonist and antagonist of this novel. He is a very competitive student whose 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, Phineas (aka Finny). His internal conflict is the basis for almost all of the action in the book.
Phineas
Finny is an outgoing and nonconformist character with a magnetic personality. A natural leader, other students are drawn to him, especially when he develops his creative games. Finny is pure of heart and noble in character, in contrast to his best friend, Gene. He also refuses to believe the war is happening, choosing to ignore life's unpleasantries. He dies during the resetting of his broken leg.
Brinker Hadley
Brinker is an elitist student leader. 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, precipitating the climax of the novel.
Edward "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 paratroopers after watching an army recruiter video. However, he later goes AWOL and returns to his home in Vermont, and then comes back to school to hide as he is suffering from insanity.
Plot
Though their personalities differ greatly, Gene and Finny are the best of friends at Devon, an exclusive prep school, during World War II. Finny decides to create a secret "Super Suicide Society of the summer session" with he and Gene as charter members. They create a rite of induction by having initiates jump out of a tree at a dangerous height into a river. One night, Gene and Finny decide to make the jump together. While up on the limb, with Finny ahead, Gene "jounced the limb." There is no elaboration; the book simply bluntly states his actions. As a result of Gene's jounce, Finny loses his balance, falls from the tree, and breaks his leg. Throughout the rest of the book, Gene contemplates his action, while Finny slowly recovers.
Finny maintains his characteristically chipper and upbeat attitude throughout his convalescence, never hinting at any animosity towards Gene. Through games, Finny begins to create a fantasy world of sorts around him. He invents "blitzball," named for blitzkrieg, the German World War II style of warfare. He even trains Gene for the Olympics in 1944, even though the Olympics were canceled due to the war, as Finny had hoped to compete before his fall.
The action comes to a head when Brinker and his followers trap Gene and Finny and give Gene a fake trial. They force the two to confront the events of the night Finny broke his leg. Gene denies everything at first, but eventually admits the truth. At this point, it is Finny who goes into denial, runs down a nearby flight of stairs and falls, re-breaking his leg. Gene tries to console him but is shunned away by the suddenly resentful Finny. Gene walks around the campus that night as if he was a ghost; this is the first time he has ever been without Finny. The next morning, Gene goes back to see Finny and they reconcile their differences: Finny makes Gene admit that he did make Finny fall, but only because it came from some blind impulse that he could not control. Finny accepts this and forgives him, but Gene is still unsure of his excuse and is not sure whether he purposely caused Finny's fall. Gene leaves to collect his friend's things after the surgery and, after the operation to reset the bone, meets with the doctor. 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 instantly. Gene takes the news as a shock, but never cries about Finny; Gene believes that when Finny died, a piece of himself died as well, 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 a unique individual, Gene believes it eventually led to his demise.
Themes
Various themes run throughout the work, one of the foremost being the manner in which people perceive threats to their selves 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 threat create a one-sided jealousy between the two friends, perhaps motivating Gene to "jounce the limb" out of envy or a need for revenge.
The novel also touches on themes of innocence and its loss. It is, perhaps, significant that the flashpoint of the work occurs in a tree, and that said flashpoint is a fall, with (given the context of the novel) a deep reference to Christian allegory, the Tree of Knowledge, Original Sin, and man's Fall from Grace. Even after the incident, Finny thought that he had fallen out of the tree himself, 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 own self, 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 chest, can quite literally be seen as Gene breaking Finny's heart.
After Finny died, Gene realizes that Finny's outlook on life and other people was justified and better than his own. He remarks that everyone was 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.