Devon as a Microcosm to the Outside World in A Separate Peace Welcome to a small school called Devon during the summer of 1942. At the beginning of the second World War, Devon is a quiet place with close friends and great memories, until one event brings the entire school into itÕs own war. With the star athlete having his leg ÒaccidentallyÓ broken by his best friend, Devon turns against itself into a war zone where nobody is safe. It all began with a childish game of jumping out of a tree
A Separate Peace; Chapter Summaries Chapter 1: The narrator (Gene) returns to the Devon School in New Hampshire, that he graduated from 15 years earlier. He goes to a certain tree and switches back to the past. Phineas dares everyone to jump from a branch in the tree into the river. Phineas, and Gene both jump. On the way back Phineas and Gene play fight so that they are late for dinner. Chapter 2:Mr. Prud'homme, a master, stops by the boys' room to scold them for missing dinner again for the ninth
evil of the main characters, Finny and Gene. Beside the Devon School flow two rivers on opposite sides of the school, the Naguamsett and the Devon. The Devon provides entertainment and happiness for Gene and Finny as they jump from the tree into the river and hold initiations into the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session. Finny, Gene, and their friends use the Devon's warm water to play in during the carefree summer session. The Devon brings out Finny's carefree character and personality when
in a person's life. In A Separate Peace, the whole atmosphere at the Devon School changed as World War II progressed. The boys either eagerly awaited the draft, enlisted in the area of war they wanted, or did not want to go at all. The students at the school created new activities for enjoyment since the customary past times could not be played due to a lack of materials. When a friend "returns" from the war, the boys at Devon got a real sense of what the war was like. The boys learned that going
Self-Examination A Separate Peace opens as Gene Forrester returns to Devon School, a New England prep school, about fifteen years after he was in attendance there. World War II had just begun then and he remembers the Summer Suicide Society--an organization founded by his best friend, Finny, which devotes itself to initiating members by having them jump from the tree into the river. Gene and Finny always had to take the first jump from the tree. As time goes on, Gene begins to resent Finny because
Author - A Separate Peace by John Knowles B. Story Setting - The story starts off at the Devon school, which is a prep school in New England at 1958. But the rest of the story takes place through a flashback of his days when he was a student at Devon during 1943. C. Main Characters - Gene Forrester - Gene is the narrator of the novel and appears at two different time periods: as a middle-aged man re-visiting Devon fifteen years after being a student there, and, for the majority of the novel, as a sixteen
Upon returning to his school fifteen years after graduating, Gene Forrester, recalled his days at the Devon School in a surreal sense. In his own words, “In the deep, tacit way in which feeling becomes stronger than thought, I had always felt that the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it, was vibrantly real while I was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day I left.” Helping embellish this reality were his friends, including Leper Lepellier, who appeared in only
Two when I spent eighteen months on a farm near Westward Ho! on the North Devon coast. I was fortunate enough to miss the London Blitz during those months and I spent an idyllic time on that farm. At the tender age of ten I was thirsting for knowledge and I was able to explore many parts of the surrounding area. I was into adventure books like Robin Hood and Treasure Island and vividly recall that this last tale began in Devon. Lundy became my own ‘Treasure Island’ and I longed to travel across the
to adulthood was contained within three sets of interconnected symbols: summer and winter, the Devon and Naguamsett Rivers, and peace and war. These symbols served as a backdrop upon which the novel was developed. The loss if Gene Forrester’s innocence was examined through these motifs. The summer and winter sessions symbolized Gene’s loss of innocence. During the summer sessions, the boys of Devon were carefree and showed no respect for the rules, while the teachers put no effort into enforcing
separate peace. The primary setting of A Separate Peace is at the Devon School. The exact location of this school is not known in terms of a state, but it is identified as being in the South, sitting between a freshwater and a saltwater stream. The bulk of the story takes place in the years of 1942 through 1944 at the same time as World War II, but the beginning and end of the book consist of Gene looking back on his years at the Devon School 15 years after he had attended it. A Separate Peace considers
novel conveys how peace can weaken or inspire during a mental war. Phineas, a natural rebel, is known as the best athlete in school. For example, he and three others come to look at a tree, which is considered among the Upper Middler students at Devon an impossibility. Phineas demonstrates his supreme power by stating that the tree is, indeed, a "cinch" (p. 6). No Upper Middler had dared to do the unthinkable, vaulting off a tree to land in a shallow river. Phineas is the first to do this. This
In John Knowle’s A Separate Peace, symbols are used to develop and advance the themes of the novel. One theme is the lack of an awareness of the real world among the students who attend the Devon Academy. The war is a symbol of the "real world", from which the boys exclude themselves. It is as if the boys are in their own little world or bubble secluded from the outside world and everyone else. Along with their friends, Gene and Finny play games and joke about the war instead of taking it seriously
demonstrated by the occurrence of World War II. It is shown that, "There were few relationships among us (the students) at Devon not based on rivalry." (p. 37) It is this rivalry and competition between the boys at Devon that ripped their friendships apart. In the early pages of the novel, Finny confesses that Gene is his best friend. This is considered a courageous act as the students at Devon rarely show any emotion. And rather than coming back with similar affection, Gene holds back and says nothing. Gene
This is where the book picks up. The book takes place at the Devon School, in the summer session of 1942. Throughout this book, the children are constantly fighting and fearing adulthood and their future. The pressure to be successful and layout a plan for the future is always upon students in school. Also, the constant reminder of World War || lays like heavy blankets over them, smothering at all times. Many of the students at the Devon School accept this pressure and continue to press on, while
Summary of A Separate Peace by John Knowles As the novel opens, Gene Forrester returns to Devon, the New Hampshire boarding school he attended during World War II. Gene has not seen Devon for 15 years, and so he notices the ways in which the school has changed since he was a student there. Strangely, the school seems newer, but perhaps, he thinks, the buildings are just better taken care of now that the war is over. Gene walks through the campus on a bleak, rainy November afternoon, revisiting
returns to the Devon School in New Hampshire, where he was a student with his friend Phineas 15 years ago, just as World War II began. The book goes back 15 years, to Gene's days with Phineas. On their first chance to jump off a huge tree into the river, Phineas, being the daredevil, goes first and Gene is the only one who follows. Gene is normally a conservative, conformist type person, but around Phineas, he consents to break the rules more often. Finny is an irregularity at Devon. He is a good
the impact of war on people. He does not understand that war kills people physically and mentally. He also does not understand how it affects a person’s life. Finny is not present for the beginning of the fall session at Devon and as a result, the statement “Peace had deserted Devon”(knowles, pg. 132). Is true indicates the lack of peace…”the peace that the school had come to know when finny was present.”(Brian, Gatten) “With the lack of this peace, the door is open for the reality that is war, to
A Separate Peace Gene Forrester is a quiet, intellectual student at Devon School in New Hampshire. During the Summer Session of 1942, he becomes close friends with his daredevil roommate Finny, who has a talent for getting away with mischief through his sincere, disarming charisma. Finny prods Gene into making a dangerous jump out of a tree into a river, and the two start a secret society based on this ritual. Gene envies Finny's astonishing athletic abilities, and he begins to suspect that Finny
their backgrounds. The narrator of the novel, Gene Forrester, is a grown man who returns to the Devon School and recollects his years spent there. During the duration of the novel Gene is around 16 years old, he is thoughtful, intelligent, with a tendency to brood. Gene is extremely competitive with a sarcastic sense of humor. He often shuns overt displays of emotion, much like most students at Devon. Gene’s “best friend” is Finny(Phineas). Finny is perfect in almost every way. He is honest
since the beginning of time. “I never killed anybody,” Gene had commented later in his life, “And I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform, I was on active duty all my time at Devon; I killed my enemy there.” In A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the value of dealing with enemies is shown by Gene, who was dealing with few human enemies, but his emotions created far greater rivals than any human could ever posses. One of the enemies