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.

Themes

There are many themes underlying the work. One central theme in this book is 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 time as well as study time. Gene felt some hidden jealousy toward Finny for this, and as a result he jounced the limb that Finny was climbing on causing him to fall.

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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 had 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. It was this innocence, attacked by both Gene and Brinker at the trial, that led to Finny's death. In the end, his epiphany about his fall from the tree was his true fall from innocence, and his death, caused by bone marrow from his leg flowing to and blocking his heart, symbolizes Gene's actions literally breaking his heart.

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After Finny died, Gene realized that Finny's outlook on life and other people was justified and better than 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 whatever that they were going to do. In a quote from the book:

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: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.

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