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.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

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. As Finny's roommate, Gene is initially suspicious of him, but he and Finny become friends.

Finny

Arguably the protagonist of the work the book focuses on him far more than the undeveloped Gene. Finny is a very outgoing and nonconformist character, who is also very charismatic and draws others to him.

Brinker

He is the great joker in the book. He is the first to accuse Gene of "pushing" Finny off the tree.

Plot

The central event of the book occurs while attempting a dangerous stunt Finny falls from a tree and is severly injured and can no longer perform athletically. At the end of the book he dies from a blod clot relating to his injury. Gene questions whether he deliberatly shook the branch Finny was standing on from jealousy. The other schoolboys also accuse him. Brinker organizes a trial for Gene in which he played judge. In effect to defend Gene.

Theme

There are many themes underlying the work. One central theme in this bookis 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. In what Gene precieved as an act of revenge, Gene jolted the tree that they were climbing and shook Finny out of it.

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 have 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.

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.