War and Rivalry Theme Analysis

John Knowles’s A Separate Peace is a novel about violence and rancor even though Gene, its protagonist, never actually faces battle. The book begins as news of World War II sweeps over Gene and his best friend, Finny, infiltrating their final summer term and academic year at the Devon School. Despite the constant presence of the war, though, Finny and Gene exist in the halcyon days of youthful innocence, focusing on schoolboy antics and their blossoming friendship. In this regard, they resist the war’s looming influence, simultaneously maintaining and creating a sense of peace that exists separately from the rest of the world. Given this innocence, then, it’s surprising when Gene develops a secret rivalry with Finny, convincing himself that Finny is trying to become a more well-rounded student than him. Thinking this way, Gene causes Finny to fall off a tree overhanging the river, sending his friend plummeting to the bank. This fall changes the course of Finny’s life, and as the consequences of this ugly act reverberate throughout the novel, Gene comes to see that any sense of enmity in his relationship with Finny has sprung from his own toxic sense of rivalry. In turn, A Separate Peace focuses not only on the encroaching influence of literal war on young men like Gene, but also on the internal wars that humans often wage with themselves and their loved ones—wars that ruin a person’s ability to enjoy the simple beauty of things like friendship and innocent happiness.

As 17-year-olds, growing up for Gene and Finny means hurdling toward World War II. As they pass an idyllic summer at Devon, they’re well aware that they’re destined to join the military when they turn 18, as evidenced by the fact that Gene refers to the boys a year older than him as “draft-bait” who might as well already be considered soldiers, since their lives have been consumed by training regimens and a “physical hardening regimen.” Finny and Gene, though, have not yet reached this point, leaving them free to experience the simple pleasures of adolescence. And yet, they can’t ignore what’s happening to the students just one year older than them, which is why Finny suggests that they should jump from a tree overhanging the Devon River—a task that the older boys must complete as part of their pre-military training. This desire to take part in the same exercises as the “draft-bait” students indicates that Finny and Gene are already entangled in the war effort, even if their experience of it is—for the time being—remote and abstract. No matter their age, it seems, they can’t avoid thinking about and preparing for the war.

As the war rages on outside the sheltered environment of Devon, Gene experiences another kind of rivalry. Although he and Finny are affectionate best friends enjoying what will most likely be their last summer as innocent adolescents, a bitter kind of enmity works its way into Gene’s mind. Knowing that Finny is well-liked and the best athlete in school, he starts to suspect that his best friend doesn’t want him to do too well in academics, thinking that Finny wants to be the most well-rounded student in school. This occurs to him because Finny is always trying to distract him from his studies, constantly convincing him to have fun instead of preparing for tests or completing his homework. Consequently, Gene decides that his friendship with Finny isn’t really as innocent as it seems. With this mindset, he senses that he and Finny are “both coldly driving ahead for [themselves] alone,” seeing their friendship not as a beautiful relationship with mutual affection, but as a competition based on self-interest. In other words, he applies the antagonism inherent in war to his bond with Finny, taking cues from the outside world in a way that destroys the insulated, blissful peace that he and Finny have managed to maintain in spite of World War II’s reigning influence.

Driven by this sudden sense of rivalry, Gene unthinkingly causes Finny to fall out of the tree. In doing so, he ends Finny’s athletic career, thereby taking away the thing his friend loves most. And though Finny seems to willfully forget that Gene most likely caused his fall, he later finds himself unable to process his emotions when it finally becomes clear—at the end of their senior year—that Gene acted against him. In fact, he’s so flustered by this realization that he falls down a set of stairs, an accident that ultimately leads to his death in the school infirmary. By calling attention to this chain of events, Knowles illustrates the devastation that rivalry can bring to otherwise healthy relationships, since Finny’s injury and death can be traced back to Gene’s misplaced resentment in the tree that fateful summer day.

At the beginning of the novel, Gene romanticizes the idea of joining the military and fighting in World War II. By the end, though, he tries to avoid any actual fighting, enlisting only so that he can join the safest branch of the military (instead of waiting to get drafted, which might put him on the front lines). This change of heart suggests that he has learned that only sadness, loss, and regret come from embracing the kind of rivalrous mindset that war requires. After all, he allowed this kind of thinking to steer his relationship with Finny, and now Finny is dead. Simply put, he comes to believe that wars are made “by something ignorant in the human heart.” Indeed, it is this emotional ignorance—this bitterness and inability to appreciate love—that he has allowed to leak into his friendship with Finny. And in doing so, he has ruined the “separate peace” that their relationship afforded him, proving that the kind of enmity that accompanies war and rivalry is destructive and tragic.