A Separate Peace: Difference between revisions
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One of Finny's ideas during Gene's "Sarcastic Summer" of 1942 is to create a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session", with Gene and himself as charter members. Finny creates a rite of induction by having members jump into the Devon River from a large, high tree. He also creates a game called "Blitz Ball" (from the German ''[[blitzkrieg]]''). Then, one day as Phineas and Gene are about to jump off the tree, Gene jounces the limb and causes Phineas to fall off and break his leg. Because of his "accident" Phineas learns from the doctor that he will not be able to compete in sports which are most dear to him. Gene reveals that he caused Finny's fall and at first Finny does not believe him and afterward feels extremely hurt. |
One of Finny's ideas during Gene's "Sarcastic Summer" of 1942 is to create a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session", with Gene and himself as charter members. Finny creates a rite of induction by having members jump into the Devon River from a large, high tree. He also creates a game called "Blitz Ball" (from the German ''[[blitzkrieg]]''). Then, one day as Phineas and Gene are about to jump off the tree, Gene jounces the limb and causes Phineas to fall off and break his leg. Because of his "accident" Phineas learns from the doctor that he will not be able to compete in sports which are most dear to him. Gene reveals that he caused Finny's fall and at first Finny does not believe him and afterward feels extremely hurt. |
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==Characters== |
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===Gene Forrester=== |
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Gene is the novel's narrator, and he tells the story as a flashback, reflecting on his days at the Devon School from the vantage point of adulthood. He is the source of all of the reader's information in the novel and yet proves somewhat unreliable as a narrator—especially regarding insights into his own motivations. We first meet him as an older man returning to the place where he spent his adolescence; we thus initially attribute the wisdom of maturity to him and assume that he brings a certain degree of perspective to his memories of Devon. But even the adult Gene seems filled with fears and insecurities; his great worry, we realize, is that nothing has changed since adolescence—not the school buildings and not, most important, himself. We are then plunged into his memories of an idyllic summer session preceding his senior year in high school and his friendship with the athletic, spirited Finny. But what Gene initially presents as a perfect friendship soon emerges as nothing of the sort; his account of certain actions, along with statements that seem insincere or strained, soon betray his true feelings. Thus, Gene initially asserts that Finny resents him for his academic success. The reader quickly comes to realize, however, that it is Gene, in fact, who resents Finny—indeed, he resents Finny all the more for Finny's lack of resentment toward him. |
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Finny's fall constitutes the climax of the story, and, afterward, all of Gene's resentments fade away. By crippling Finny, he brings him down to his own level. As Gene and Finny subsequently become increasingly codependent, the reader comes to see that Gene's forced equalization of the two boys may have been darkly deliberate—it may have stemmed from a deep desire within Gene to blur his own identity, to lose himself in another. Gene's act of putting on Finny's clothes and standing in front of the mirror, feeling strangely peaceful, symbolizes his desire to leave behind his own self and become Finny. As the object of Gene's jealousy, Finny is, in the language of the novel's dominating metaphor, the object of Gene's own private “war”; yet, as the mirror scene and other episodes make clear, Finny is also Gene's great love. Because of Gene's own insecurities and smallness of self, however, he can realize this love only after crippling Finny, for only then can his mixed awe and resentment give way to pure devotion. It is never clear whether, in jouncing Finny from the tree, the young Gene is motivated by an unconscious impulse or a conscious design. What he certainly does not know, however, is that the fall from the tree will set in motion the chain of events leading to Finny's death, making Gene Finny's killer, the destroyer of the thing that he loves most. Gene's fatal tendency to blur love and hate, his deep desire to blur his own identity into Finny's, is at the core of the novel's tragedy. |
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===Phineas "Finny"=== |
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Although we see all of the characters through Gene's eyes, his perception of others is most significant in the case of Finny. Even as Gene resents his best friend and harbors dark, unspoken feelings of hatred toward him, he regards Finny at times with something akin to worship. His depiction of Finny contains a strong note of physical, if not erotic attraction. Finny is presented in classical terms, as a kind of Greek hero-athlete, always excelling in physical activities and always spirited—thymos, to use the Greek term. (These Greek heroes were, like Finny, fated to die young; the archetype was Achilles, who considered it preferable to live briefly and gloriously than to die of old age.) Energetic and vibrant, Finny is a tremendous athlete; friendly and verbally adroit, he is able to talk his way out of any situation. Finny finds himself in his element during Devon's summer session; the substitute headmaster enforces few rules and Finny can let loose his spontaneity and boisterousness without restraint. Yet while he constantly tests the limits and asserts his own will, he seeks neither to emerge “victorious” in any argument or contest nor to “defeat” competing systems of rule. Blitzball, the game that he invents in which everyone competes |
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Moreover, by assuming that everyone thinks like he does, Finny often acts selfishly, insisting that he and Gene do whatever he fancies. This carefree, self-absorbed attitude is one of the roots of Gene's resentment toward Finny, though Finny, aware only of himself and seeing only the good in others, never seems to pick up on Gene's inner turmoil. Finny is a powerful, charismatic figure—perhaps too good a person, as he inspires in Gene not only loyalty but also jealousy. |
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===Elwin "Leper" Lepellier=== |
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Leper is the isolationist of the novel who was often ridiculed by fellow classmates. He was present when Finny "fell" from the tree. Eventually Leper, surprising his classmates, enlists in the army and then deserts during a mental breakdown (and also to avoid a Section 8 discharge), and returns home to Vermont. He then returns to school to hide as he is suffering from insanity brought on by his breakdown in the military. He is present when Finny slips down the marble staircase and breaks his leg again. His name is symbolic of his personality. Sufferers of leprosy are called "lepers" and are isolated from society. Similarly, Leper is an isolated person, avoiding social interaction whenever possible. After deserting, Leper suffers from the same hallucinations that had brought his mental breakdown to the surface while still in the army. The hallucinations mostly concern transformations: men into women, chair arms into human arms. This illustrates both the turmoil which the war causes in the boys, and the transformation that they face in the Army and the war. |
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===Brinker Hadley=== |
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Brinker is a politician who loves nothing more than order and justice. He is conservative and predictable. His vicious sweet-tooth for justice is much like a bulldog's. Quite the opposite of Finny's happy foolishness, his somber lawfulness provides a contrast to Finny's antics. He is the personification of guilt. He later changes his style into care free and rebel. Brinker hosts the inquiry in which it is discovered that Gene caused Finny to fall which directly leads to Finny breaking his leg for the second time. |
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==Allusions and references to and from other works== |
==Allusions and references to and from other works== |
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Revision as of 01:46, 8 May 2009
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2008) |
| Author | John Knowles |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Bildungsroman |
| Publisher | Secker and Warburg |
Publication date | 1959 |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 204 pp |
| ISBN | NA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
A Separate Peace is John Knowles' first published novel, released in 1959.[1] The coming-of-age novel is Knowles' most widely-known work.
Plot summary
The blacks story begins with Gene Forrester returning to his old prep school, Devon (a thinly-veiled portrayal of Knowles' own alma mater, Philips Exeter Academy), fifteen years after he graduated. He returns to visit two places he regards as "fearful sites": a flight of marble stairs, and a tree by a river. He examines the stairs and notices that the stairs are made of very hard marble. He then trudges through the mud to the tree which, to his relief, is smaller and less intimidating than he remembered it being. The tree brings back memories of Gene's time as a student at Devon.
Despite their polar personalities, Gene and Phineas (Finny) become fast friends at Devon: Gene's quiet, introverted intellectual personality matches Finny's more extroverted, carefree, athletic demeanor. During the time at Devon Gene goes through a period of intense friendship with Finny which is followed by a period of intense animosity during which he strives to out-do Finny academically. This animosity culminates (and is ended) when Finny falls out of the tree and shatters his leg because Gene shook the branch they were both standing on (whether intentionally or unintentionally is unclear). The rest of the story revolves around Gene's attempts to come to grips with who he is, why he did what he did and with human nature. In the end Gene is confronted about the 'accident' by Brinker Hadley who accuses Gene of trying to kill Finny. This confrontation ends with Finny falling down the stairs and again breaking his leg which leads to Finny's death.
One of Finny's ideas during Gene's "Sarcastic Summer" of 1942 is to create a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session", with Gene and himself as charter members. Finny creates a rite of induction by having members jump into the Devon River from a large, high tree. He also creates a game called "Blitz Ball" (from the German blitzkrieg). Then, one day as Phineas and Gene are about to jump off the tree, Gene jounces the limb and causes Phineas to fall off and break his leg. Because of his "accident" Phineas learns from the doctor that he will not be able to compete in sports which are most dear to him. Gene reveals that he caused Finny's fall and at first Finny does not believe him and afterward feels extremely hurt.
Allusions and references to and from other works
- The story of Gene's resentment of Finny – which ultimately leads to Finny's sacrificial and vicarious death, as well as the innocence of Finny, the Pharisee-like quality of Hadley, and the symptoms of Leper – are allusions to the New Testament.
- In Paul Russell's novel The Coming Storm, A Separate Peace is used as a text in English class.
- The Simpsons episode "Mother Simpson" features a discussion between Lisa and Grandma Simpson about the book.
- In Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie reads A Separate Peace for his English teacher.
- In the film Sideways, a student reads a paragraph of the novel aloud to his English class.
Adaptations
- In 1972, the novel was adapted into a film starring Parker Stevenson and John Heyl.[2]
- In 2004, it was adapted into a made-for-TV movie by Showtime.[3]
Location
The Devon School is based on Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, of which the author is an alumnus.[4]
Reception
The book is a favorite of Bill Gates.[5]The book also inspired Meg Rosoff's 2007 novel What I Was.
See also
References
- ^ A Separate Peace (Author Biography): Information and Much More from Answers.com
- ^ A Separate Peace (1972) at IMDb
- ^ A Separate Peace (2004) at IMDb
- ^ "My Separate Peace", Esquire, March 1985
- ^ Paterson, Thane (June 13, 2000). "Advice for Bill Gates: A Little Culture Wouldn't Hurt". Business Week. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
External links
