A Separate Peace Theme

In the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the reader can perceive multiple themes throughout the novel, depending on how much detail they can get out of the story, when reading between the lines. When I read the novel A Separate Peace, I perceived a single, and in my opinion, a very significant theme of the book.

Before I launch into describing the main theme of the book, I must first make it obvious what the setting of the book is and how the book starts, as that has a significant effect on the theme of the novel. The novel takes place in the state of New Hampshire, Devon, during the times of the second World War (WWII persists only during the flashback). The novel starts when the main character, Gene, the protagonist, returns to his

old prep school at Devon, fifteen years after he graduated, to visit two places he regards to as “fearful sites”. The first site Gene visits is a flight of marble stairs, and the second site is a tree by the river, where Gene begins to flash back to the summer of 1942. Almost throughout the entire novel, the story is a flashback of what happened to Gene fifteen years ago.

In the novel, the theme is focused around characters who struggle to establish their identities, but most specifically, it is focused around the two main characters, Finny, short for Phineas, and Gene. One of the main relationships in the story, is between those two main characters, which revolves around the seeking and establishing of each of their own identities. Gene, throughout the novel, envies Finny, and as of that, he absolutely loses his own identity, and struggles to define himself outside of his best friend, whom is Finny. Although Gene wants to establish his own identity, his close competition, along with his strong* bond with Finny, makes him feel greatly disharmonized as to his identity, and who he is.* Although Gene impacts the theme a little more strongly than Finny, Finny still has a great* impact on the theme of the book.

The first thematic pattern I perceived when reading A Separate Peace that relates to the theme I’ve mentioned above is when Gene dressed up in Finny’s clothes.

To begin with, one of the “fearful sites” is a tree by the river, because Gene, Finny, and other boys used to use one of its branches to dive into the river. On one random day when Gene was studying in his dorm room for the next exam. He worked a lot harder on hi school work, only to be better than Finny. Finny walked in and stated that Leper is about to jump from the branch into the river, to be a member of the club Gene and Finny had created, the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session. Gene did not want to go, as he thought it was another of Finny’s envious plans to make sure Gene did not study, and he said so to Finny. Finny disagreed with Gene, saying that if he has to study he will let him, and that he is not here to stop him from accomplishing his goals. When Gene realized Finny wasn’t jealous of him, he went with Finny to the club meeting. When they got to the tree, Finny proposed they do a double-jump off the branch. When it was time to jump, Gene felt envious of Finny, of how he’s such a good friend, how Finny doesn’t envy him back, and how Finny was a perfect guy. Gene couldn’t live with it, he couldn’t stand being envious anymore, and so when he stood high up in the tree, Gene jounced the branch, and watched his friend fall and shatter his

leg.

That same evening, when Finny was taken to the infirmary and Gene was in the dorm room* alone, Gene dressed up in Finny’s clothes, and sees himself as Finny. For a little time, Gene can be someone other than an envious and jealous person, he can be Finny. Gene feels great guilt after jouncing the branch, but after putting Finny’s clothes on, it helps him comfort and relax himself for the rest of the night. However, when Gene wakes up, he must once again deal with reality. He must once again deal with his envious identity.

“It was only on waking up that this illusion was gone,
and I was confronted with myself,
and what I had done to Finny.”

The illusion Gene talks about is himself dressing up in Finny’s clothes, and that after he woke up, the illusion was gone, and Gene had to face what he had done to Finny.

The second thematic pattern I perceived when reading A Separate Peace that relates to the theme I’ve mentioned above is when Finny trains Gene for the 1944 Olympics.

To begin with, as I described the first thematic pattern, I mentioned that Gene was the cause of Finny breaking his leg. When Finny broke his leg, the doctor told him he would never be able to be the athlete he once was, and that piece of information was heavy-hearted for him to hear. Finny basically lived as an athlete. He would always play games, make up new ones, as long as they weren’t competitive, and as long as there wasn’t a winner. Finny liked games where no one won and lost, just like the game he made up, “Blitzball”. In “Blitzball”, you would catch a medicine ball, and everyone else playing in the game would try to run and tackle you down, so you either ran away, or passed the ball to someone else. Now without a healthy leg, Finny would never be able to do that again, and he would never be able to be the way he wants himself to be. When Finny began to train Gene, it wasn’t because that he was a good friend and that he needed someone to take Finny’s place. The main reason Finny trained Gene for the 1944 Olympics, was because he wanted to share his dream of the 1944 Olympics that he would originally train for. In fact, Finny trains Gene as if Gene were a part of Finny, giving Finny an immense amount of joy and satisfaction when looking at Gene, or basically looking at himself. As mentioned in the first

thematic pattern, Gene feels Finny’s identification, and Gene responds by becoming, slowly and in his own way, a part of Finny.