Compare And Contrast A Separate Peace And Gene Forrester

War has No Preference

On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland in order to acquire more living quarters or Lebensraum for the German people. Circa 1942, the same war that began four short years earlier has started to creep into the minds of the students at the Devon School in New Hampshire. Gene Forrester, an intellectual student, conveys a very important lesson on the catastrophic effects of indifference, while his friend Leper Lepellier displays the destruction and madness resulting from other’s indifference. Both Gene and Leper are living representations of the causes and effects of the morbid ideas of warfare.

Gene Forrester’s internal war is fought over his constant fear of the war and Finny. While reminiscing at Devon, Gene reveals that he “could see with great clarity

the fear that [he] had lived in” and that he made his “escape”(10). Fear is one of the main reasons that a passive person such as Gene would neglect his need for peace. He believes that the only way to diminish his fear is to begin a psychological war against it. Referring to himself, Gene indicates that “the giants of…childhood...are not merely smaller in relation to...growth, but that they are absolutely smaller, shrunken by age” (14). The giants that Gene refers to are World War Ⅱand his own personal war over his devotion to Finny and his own social status. The more Gene is with Finny, the more self-conscious he becomes causing the fear inside of him to swell. Foretelling of future events in the novel, Gene speaks about how “nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even death by violence” (14). This allusion to events explains how small and insignificant his memories from Devon are, including the death of his unrivaled friend, Finny. When Gene says that “nothing endures,” he is also foreshadowing to the fact that the fear that he had lived in is belittled in the end. Gene’s natural response to fear is to ignore it until it is no longer a problem.

The Army at this time was easy to get into and extremely difficult to get out of.

When observing Leper’s behavior, Gene saw that Leper was “psycho” and “it was the army which had done it to him” (144). Leper is so afraid of what he is going to experience in the Army that he goes crazy. Leper simply does not have the mental toughness to endure the responsibilities brought on by the Military. Due to Leper’s inability to serve, he is bound to receive a “Section Eight discharge” which is a “dishonorable discharge only worse” (144). As leper grapples with the war waged inside of him, he struggles to see right from wrong. In order to escape possible discharge and a life of dishonor, Leper manages to run away from the Army before it can get to him. Back at Devon, there is rumors and jokes being spread about how Leper became “nervous in the service”(148). When Leper returns to Devon, everything is different which does not help him adjust back to his usual routine. While his sense of reason is perverted by the effects of his mental state, Leper can still see the truth behind Finny’s accident. By the end of the novel, Leper is still struggling with his mental state of

being.

From an abstract point of view, the personalities of the two boys can be connected to the effects of war on a person. Gene represents “the fat old men” who are up in the ranks and start wars out of spite towards their enemy (115). These men are “old” which means that they lived during the time of World WarⅠand they have unfinished business, so they carelessly send the youth to fight their war for them. Gene is comparable to these men in that he is indifferent towards the war and the fact that his peers are dying on the frontlines. In contrast, Leper explains to Gene how the Army “turned everything inside out”(150). Leper illustrates the brutal effects that a war can have on an individual. He leaves for the Army thrilled that he might have a chance to ski for a living and he returns home with nothing but sadness and dishonor. Reflecting on the war, Gene states that “wars are made instead by something ignorant in the human heart”(201). Gene’s ignorance resides in his reluctance to know who he is as a person, let alone about the war. Leper’s ignorance shines through when he goes to war expecting to be apart of a ski troop. Gene depicts the beginning of the war and Leper portrays the hardships and post-war conflict that takes place in an individual.

The internal wars that Gene and Leper fight are spurred by the overarching war that is so present in their lives. Gene shows how indifference can open the door for brutal warfare that stops for no one. Leper was not prepared to handle the impact of the war which ruined him. War has no preference of who it wants to affect, it has an impact on every ignorant heart it comes into contact with.