A Separate Peace

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A Separate Peace

• By John Knowles

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John Knowles

• At age 15, he became a student at Phillips Exeter
  Academy, a well-known boarding school in New
  Hampshire.
• This school was very similar to the fictional
  Devon in A Separate Peace.

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Main Characters

• Gene
• Narrator (1st person)
• Tells of school experience
• Best friends with Phineas
• Good Student
• Follower (conformer)

• Phineas (Finny)
• Genes roommate/ best friend
• Exceptional athlete
• Believes all people are good
• Natural leader

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Flashback

• a story in the present that refers back to an
  event(s) that occurred in the past.
• In ASP- starts in the present with Gene returning
  to his school and remembering a happening that
  occurred 15 years previously.

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Theme

• Underlying meaning or main idea of a work.
• There may be several themes.
• A Separate Peace
• War and peace
• Friendship and jealousy
• Conformity and Individualism
• Search for identity
• Loss of innocence

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Chapter 1

• Gene Forrester returns 15 years later to Devon
  school.
• The reader is introduced to the characters.
• The story flashes back to the summer session, and
  they make their first jump from the tree.

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Chapter 2

• Students go to tea at Mr. Prudhommes house.
• Finny wears school tie as belt and pink shirt to
  celebrate recent bombings.
• Mr. Patch-Withers is pleased at the strange
  tribute.
• Students form the Super Suicide Society of the
  Summer Session.
• They jump from tree again Gene almost falls but
  Finny saves him. (irony and foreshadowing)

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Chapter 3

• They create Blitzball.
• Finny breaks swimming record. (p. 916) He
  doesnt want to tell anyone.
• Gene and Finny skip school to go to the beach.
• Finny admits to Gene that Gene is his best
  friend. Gene doesnt return the feeling.

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Chapter 4

• The boys return from the beach.
• Gene fails his trig test. He begins to feel that
  Finny is intentionally trying to make him fail.
• Finny says he didnt know Gene had to study.
• Leper decides to jump from the tree.
• Finny falls from the tree.

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Chapter 5

• Gene visits Finny in the infirmary. Finnys leg
  is shattered.
• Sports are finished for Finny. He asks Gene to
  do sports for him.
• Gene comes to terms with his guilt of jouncing
  the limb. He tries to tell Finny but doesnt.
• Gene tries to tell Finny again when he visits
  Finny at his home. Finny refuses to believe
  Gene.

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Chapter 6

• Gene realizes the summer session has changed him.
• He decides to go out for the rowing team.
• Quackenbush, the crew manager, picks a fight with
  Gene and calls him maimed.
• They both fall into the Nagaumsett River, which
  is dirty and murky. (symbolic) Contrast it with
  the Devon River (p. 929)

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Chapter 7

• Brinker-considered the Hub of the class
• Gene is accused by the boys in the Butt Room of
  causing Finnys injury.
• The boys help out in the war effort by removing
  snow at a railroad yard. Leper goes off to look
  at nature.
• Brinker and Gene decide to enlist.
• Finny returns to school.

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Literary Terms

• Symbolism- a person, place, thing, or event that
  represents or stands for something else, usually
  abstract.
• Irony-a contrast between expectation and reality,
  what is said and what is really meant, and what
  is expected and what really happens.
• Foreshadowing-an event in the story that hints at
  the ending or a later event in the story.

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Chapter 8

• Finny is back at Devon. He begins to question
  war. Finny feels he has suffered because he was
  aiming for the 1944 Olympics. He will now train
  Gene. In return, Gene will help Finny with his
  studies.
• Brinker claims Genes plan to have own room
  didnt work.
• Gene talks of enlisting. Finny is shocked. Gene
  realizes that Finny is somewhat dependent on him
  now. Genes loses chance of having separate
  peace and finding individualism.
• According to Finny, the war was created by fat
  old men in Washington.