A Separate Peace Sparknotes

A Separate Peace

A Separate Peace tells the story of a 16 year-old boy named Gene who is on a journey of self-exploration and growth. By returning to his home roots where dramatic life changing events have shaped who he has become, he reflects on how fearful he was in those days. Taking place during World War II, Gene's adolescent years at Devon boy’s boarding school were spent mainly with his best friend and roommate Phineas (nicknamed Finny). Through his friendship with Finny, he discovers their undeniable personality difference’s that inevitably pushes them over the edge. Although Gene is quiet, intellectual and reserved and Finny is outgoing, athletic and daring, these two opposites tend to compliment each other for the most part.

Naturally

as young adolescent boys, Gene and Finny's friendship takes a competitive turn as each start to feel one is trying to out shine the other. Beginning with Finny's idea to create a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session," with Gene being a charter member as well. Finny, naturally taking on the authoritative role creates a rite of passage by having inductees jump into the Devon River from a high and frightful tree. During this endeavor Finny's anarchical characteristics emerge and a dominant tone is starting to evolve. This rivalry blossoms when Gene's subtle resentment and envious thoughts manifest towards Finny.
The rivalry climaxes when Finny and Gene face the high and frightful tree ironically to jump together in harmony when Gene jostles the branch they are standing on, causing Finny to fall and shatter his leg. Since the accident Finny is informed that he will never be able to compete in sports again, confiscating a piece of his lively hood. In this pivotal moment Gene starts to feel ashamed of the extent to which his insecurities and envy have taken a hold of him. Gene then decides to confront Finny about the accident telling him about the jostling of the branch and his involvement with the fall. Finny has no interest in Gene’s Declaration and latches on to his friendship with Gene.
As time passes on, Finny returns to Devon eager to pick up where he left off. Since Finny can no longer part take in sports he encourages Gene to do so and in return Gene tutors Finny in his academics; they are both surprised by their progress. As Gene’s training progresses, it sparks a controversy between life at the current moment and the idea that athletic training should be dedicated to war. Although athletics are geared towards the war both Gene and Finny feel a profound inner peace as they train together. But that feeling soon subsides when they’re friend Leper enlists in the army only to escape and reaches out to Gene for help.
As Gene arrives in Vermont to see Leper, he isn’t mentally prepared for the truth. Leper has deserted the war to avoid discharge for insanity caused by his traumatic hallucinations. This brings a harsh sense of reality to the boys about the war and a disruption in their adolescent innocence. Since returning to Devon the boys set up a mock trail about Finny’s fall with Leper being a main witness. During the questioning, Finny changes the story to make Gene appear innocent of his actions in the tree. Although inevitably the evidence builds against Gene and Finny rushes out of the room in tears.
The last thing the boys hear is Finny’s foot steps and the tapping of his cane as he runs down the hall, followed by the horrible sound of his body falling down the marble staircase.

Once Finny gets settled in the infirmary, Gene sets out to visit him and is assured by the doctor that Finny has a clean break on the same leg he has originally shattered. As reality of the situation is setting in Gene and Finny finally confront Gene’s intensions the day of the accident, where Gene explains that some “crazy thing” inside of him made him jostle the branch. Finny assures him that he understands and believes Gene. Finny then goes into surgery to re set his leg and when Gene returns to the infirmary the doctor explains to Gene that a bit of marrow escaped from the bone as we was setting, it entering his bloodstream and stopping his heart. Finny was dead.

The novel ends on an appropriately dark note, as the war invades Devon. Through the passing of Finny and the war encroaching in, Gene realizes the real war was within him-self. The boys of Devon lost a childhood illusion that the world is a fundamentally friendly place. To Gene, the war emerges out of a profound and toxic ignorance in the human heart- an ignorance that causes one to seek out an enemy and to see the world as a hostile place. A Separate Peace is a war novel without tanks and guns; it is the shadow of the war and the knowledge of its approach that affects the

characters.
Later, after the war, Gene looks back and understands that he fought his real war at Devon. Unaware of his own identity at the time he lived through Finny while trying to understand and fight his own inner battle. Gene;s true enemy was the narrow, spiteful self that harbored jealousy, and that self died with Finny. A Separate Peace begins with the Gene’s unacknowledged guilt that starts to haunt him after the accident, than moves him to a painful self-knowledge, and at last to a peace that lights his way into adulthood.

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