TCH 236 - A Separate Peace Blog Post

• Title and author: A Separate Peace by John Knowles

• Plot summary: This story is told by Gene Forrester and it begins with him revisiting Devon, the New Hampshire boarding school that is the main setting of the story, as he recalls his past experiences there, particularly with his best friend Phineas. The two share an interesting relationship, as Gene feels a mix of competitiveness and idolization towards Finny and his great athleticism and charm. These feelings are reflected when the two of them are about to ritually jump off a tree together and Gene pushes Finny off, leaving Finny with a detrimentally broken leg that not only hospitalizes him, but prevents him from playing sports ever again. Gene inevitably deals with guilt from causing such a terrible incident and even attempts to apologize to Finny when visiting him, though Finny dismisses him as crazy and Gene does not admit to it again after this. While he is gone, another character Brinker accuses Gene of causing Finny’s injury to which Gene outwardly denies, though internally knows this is true. Finny then returns to Devon after a while of rest and the two essentially pick up from where they left off, though readers are exposed to Gene’s inner turmoils and general uneasiness with being around Finny. While all of these events unfold, WWII is taking place and the boys at Devon are trying to live their lives as normal with this catastrophe happening in real time. When Finny is at home, Gene considers enlisting himself in the war, and when Finny realizes this upon returning he is not only upset with Gene, but denies the war’s existence at all. Gene then decides not to enlist and adopts Finny’s war-denying attitude. There is another boy named Leper who attends the school and is known as being rather peculiar, and he ends up joining the army himself. The boys later receive a message from him that he has “escaped” and they must go visit him; Gene goes to visit Leper and realizes he has not escaped, but has been issued a Section 8 dismissal and Gene witnesses this deterioration of his mental wellbeing. When Gene returns to Devon, he does not tell the others about Leper’s misfortune, but it certainly affects him. Finny later admits to knowing there is a war and mentions how he has seen Leper himself, which he had not explained to anyone after it occurred. After a few more events unravel, Finny and Gene are woken up in the middle of the night by Brinker and rushed to a building on campus. Here, Brinker officially accuses Gene of causing Finny’s injury in front of many other boys, essentially being the set up of a trial. Leper is called in as a witness, to many’s surprise as no one has known his whereabouts. He explains how Gene and Finny were on the tree together before jumping, though the two both try to argue that it was an accident and Gene was at the bottom of the tree when Finny fell. Refusing to believe what he hears, Finny runs out of the building and falls down the stairs, breaking his leg once more. Gene rushes to the infirmary to visit Finny, where he is initially met with an unexpected hostility. Finny knows that Gene caused the accident, and here in the hospital Gene apologizes and the two come to terms with one another. When Gene comes back to visit the next day, he discovers Finny has died. The book ends with Gene continuing his life at Devon and graduating, and him realizing that he no longer has enemies or any hatred for the world.

• Why should we think differently about this book? In American society, we haven’t experienced the trauma and hardships of full-fledged world war since the early-mid 1900s. Since A Separate Peace revolves so largely around World War II and its effects on adolescents, our modern young readers may find it hard to relate or understand. Now when looking at this novel, we adopt more of a psychological, almost critical lens that before was one that could well relate and empathize.

• How could we make this novel more relevant to present day students? This book could be treated as a cross-curricular story in an English class due to its historical fiction nature. An English teacher could introduce a WWII unit and use this book to not only emphasize the reality of the time period, beyond just the bloodshed, but also expose students to how their peers felt during this time and how it even affected their relationships. Additionally, many young adolescents develop a competitive nature during such an unsure, new period in their lives, and this phenomena is really well represented in Knowles’s story. If students read this book during the formative period of adolescence, then they will understand the dangers of competing with friends and realize it is wrong to compare yourself to your peers.

• Themes:

  • Jealousy can get the best of relationships: It is obvious how much jealousy Gene harbors towards Finny, as Gene himself explains this to the audience rather frequently. This jealousy is what leaves Finny injured for the rest of his life, eventually killing him. While it is human nature to feel jealous from time to time, this story depicts the dangers of feeling envy so strongly and how it ends up harming both parties in one way or the other. To an extent, jealousy and competition can get confused with friendship and love, as one may think jealousy is rooted in admiration. While this is true, the problem comes from admiration turning into idolization, and putting someone on a pedestal will leave you feeling as if you will never compare. Such feelings eat Gene up inside, which is what leads to him causing Finny’s injury.

    • Supporting Quotes:

      • “I should have told him then that he was my best friend… I started to; I nearly did. But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.” (pg. 48)

      • “I found a single sustaining thought. The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. You did hate him for breaking the school swimming record, but so what? He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term. You would have had an A in that one except for him. Except for him.” (pg. 53)

      • When Gene wears Finny’s shirt, he writes, “when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become, no character out of daydreams. I was Phineas, Phineas to the life… I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief, but it seemed, standing there in Finny’s triumphant shirt, that I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again.” (pg. 62)

  • External warfare can lead to one’s internal warfare: While WWII acts as a background event in this novel, it is extremely prevalent in the boys’ lives and the plot. These boys are trying to enjoy themselves the best they can and make fun out of the little things, though there is a constant lingering melancholy among them due to the current events. Finny’s denial of the war is very significant in how it demonstrates a coping mechanism for someone so young and, in his case, someone who is unable to contribute to the effort. Young adolescents must have felt so helpless during this period and in a constant battle with themselves because while they want to live their own lives and have fun, there are people dying left and right. The mirroring of the external war happening and Gene’s, for example, internal conflict is also important because the battle within himself is that matter of love versus hatred, jealousy versus admiration. This parallels war in the sense that many join the army for both love for their country or hatred for the enemy.

    • Supporting Quotes:

      • “Bombs in Central Europe were completely unreal to us here, not because we couldn't imagine it… but because our place here was too fair for us to accept something like that. We spent that summer in complete selfishness, I'm happy to say. The people in the world who could be selfish in the summer of 1942 were a small band, and I'm glad we took advantage of it.” (pg. 30)

      • “So the war swept over like a wave at the seashore, gathering power and size as it bore on us, overwhelming in its rush, seemingly inescapable.” (pg. 109)

      • “Because it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart.” (pg. 201)

• Connections to current events and resources: In connecting these themes to current events, a popular example of jealousy among young adolescents has come with the advent of social media. Social media can drastically impact people’s, especially young people, mental health because it is a constant outlet for comparison. The following video discusses the mental toll social media can have on people, specifically in terms of jealousy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCPvc2qp08E. As for warfare, I know myself and many of my peers find themselves feeling helpless to assist what is going on in the world. This helplessness negatively affects people and can lead to internal conflicts. A common internal conflict I have seen is people wanting to enjoy their lives, but finding it hard due to all the issues impacting society. This relates back to the struggles of the Devon boys in A Separate Peace; they try to juggle a world war and their personal enjoyment at the same time. This article provides several small ways how students can contribute to a better community: https://www.jagranjosh.com/articles/how-school-students-can-make-a-difference-in-the-society-1524034440-1. If the Devon boys had a resource such as this, they would have felt better about not being able to enlist due to a given circumstance and still found a way to help.

• Community members: A war veteran of any kind could speak to the class about their experiences and how it affected their mental wellbeing and relationships. This is hard for many to talk about, but if there was someone who was willing then this would be a great opportunity for students to empathize with not only the events in the story, but also what this person has experienced. The hardships faced in war are incalculable, and the effects should not be glamorized in the way that they sometimes are in US history particularly. In addition to this source, we could have some type of social worker come into the classroom and cover adolescent relationships and mental health. They could tie this into social media, for instance, and how it affects their peer relationships. While there isn't social media in the novel, it again relates to that competitive nature that exists in the story and in adolescent development. A prompt the teacher might ask after the presentation would be how they think the characters would interact if social media had existed at the time, and evidence in the story that makes them feel this way. A final community resource that could be helpful is if there is a college age student teacher in the class; they could talk with the students about these topics and their own experience as an adolescent. Young kids love to hear from older teens/young adults about their opinions because they view them as role models, so this resource could offer them solid advice in their process of emotional growth and maturation.