A Separate Peace

In A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, two young boys called Finny and Gene go to a military school called Devon. World War 2 is in full swing and the pressure is on the boys to enlist for the army, to serve their country. Finny is optimistic and full of fun and so the news of war just brushes on by him but his friend Gene is a more mature and serious minded young adult. Finny is athletic and breaks a school record on his first try while Gene is gifted in his studies at school. Since everyone is concerned about the war Finny invented a 'war game' called Blitzball. He also invented the Super Summer Suicide Society, which involved Gene and himself jumping from a high tree branch into a river far below. After the two friends jumped then the other members of the group would jump after them. After a while Gene becomes convinced that Finny is not his friend but his competitor at Devon. Gene thinks that Finny has him go up in the tree every night to jump, just to disrupt his studying and mess with his head. Angry and afraid Gene makes the tree branch shake as Finny balances to its edge. Finny, with nothing to grab to hold his balance, falls off the side of the tree branch and hits the riverbank below. The boys rushed Finny to the hospital at the school and the doctor announced that Finny's leg was shattered. Several days later Gene visits Finny and is wracked with guilt when he learns that Finny will never be able to play sports again. Finny did not see Gene shake the tree limb so he can not bring himself to accuse his best friend, which only makes Gene feel worse since he thought they were competitors. Unable to believe that he misjudged his best friend so thoroughly, Gene tells the truth to Finny who doesn't believe him and gets angry with him for making stuff up. Gene realizes that the truth would hurt Finny too much to press the point so he admits that he was just stressed out and not thinking straight. So Gene attempts to bury his guilt when Finny returns to Devon and the two become great friends again but the other students at Devon will not let the mystery of Finny's fall go away so easily. Brinker, another main character in the story, is determined to wring the truth from Gene. He wants to hear Gene say that he was the one who shook the limb and he wants Finny to hear Gene say it. Brinker is the perfect character foil of Finny and yet he pretends that he just wants to know the truth. Finny is anti-war while Brinker is pro-war. Brinker and some of his cronies pull Gene and Finny from their beds so a trial can take place. In an auditorium, Brinker questions Gene and Finny about what happened the night Finny fell and in the process evokes some bad memories.. As Gene  to keep the truth hidden he realizes that he is not trying to hide the truth to save himself but he is trying to protect Finny from it. At first Finny balks at the truth but then in a fit of panic and distress he runs from the room and the boys hear him fall down the marble stairs. A Separate Peace shows how peer pressure and competition can destroy friendship even in the greatest of friends. All the boys at Devon were constantly being taught about war, rivalry and domination and its no wonder why they turned on themselves under these pressures. This book connects to current events at normal high schools because students at high schools are also pressured by sports and their grades and people can turn against each other just as easily.