There’s a war going on, and you have broken your best friend’s leg. How will you escape the consuming war, and cope with crippling your best friend? In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, this is what character Gene Forrester is going through. At the Devon school in New England, World War II is coming, and it’s taking everything with it. Because he is an upcoming senior, for Gene it’s either enlist or be drafted. Peers all around him are enlisting into the war, and there’s already been some consequences. Along with the war, Gene must find a way to gut though the guilt and help his friend Finny heal.
Persuaded by the thought that Finny is using him, Gene causes Finny to fall from a tree branch and break his leg. Due to the bad break, Finny is unable to do the things he wants to do, so Gene must do them for him. Gene finds peace through the fog of the war, and it is the only thing keeping him sane with so many things clouding around him. Gene’s experience of the symbols peace and guilt (from Finny’s broken leg) are important symbols in A Separate Peace. Despite the shifting seasons and relentless war, Gene still manages to find peace.
As summer turns to winter and Finny comes back to Devon there are a lot of things going on all around Gene. With snow covered fields and ice covered rivers there isn’t much to do other than work. As Gene works on the railroads clearing snow out of the way for trains, a train of soldiers goes past, igniting a larger fire in Gene and Brinker, a fellow classmate and friend. who convinces Gene to enlist with him. As Gene is returning to his dorm, he discovers Finny is back at school. One morning as Gene and Finny awake and Finny is omplaining about no maids yet again because of the war, Brinker comes to carry out his plans to enlist with Gene. Finny talks sense into them and they both decide against enlisting. Finally the war begins to settle in their minds and the winter becomes more bearable. ”
For the war was no longer eroding the peaceful summertime stillness I had prized so much at Devon, and although the playing fields were crusted under a foot of congealed snow and the river was now a hard grey-white line of ice between gaught trees, peace had come back to Devon for me (Knowles 109). Now that the war was no longer the main concern, Gene was now able to find peace in the winter, as he had in the summer. Due to the war’s frightening and poignant nature, moments of peace become more meaningful. Peace is important because, like the eye of a storm, it provides a tranquil and unperturbed moment allowing for regroupment before the storm (in this case the war) sweeps you up again. Later as the jaws of war begin its second bite and people are getting swallowed up, Gene finds it more and more difficult to find peace. Not only is the inhaling war making it harder to find peace, it is also taking it away.
As Gene is coming back from working on the railroad tracks, Brinker suggests to him that they should enlist, and Gene agrees. That night Gene goes over his decision, realized all the things the war is doing, and taking away. “Why go through the motions of getting an education and watch the war slowly chip away at the one thing I loved here, the peace, the measureless peace of the Devon summer(Knowles 101). ” Gene does not think it’s necessary to even stay at school because he will eventually be in the war and why try to learn and stay when the only thing you love, is being slowly devoured by the war and you’re left with nothing?
The peace of Devon is the only thing keeping Gene from going to the war early. The author John Knowles understands the human nature of how people can become so attached to something, Like Gene is to the Peace he finds, that it is hard to let go of. Peace has such a strong hold on Gene that it dictates what actions and choices he pursues. The peace is so important to Gene because through all the major, life changing decisions Gene must make, The peace helps relax him from the stress. As well as struggling with peace, Gene also struggles with the weight of breaking Finny’s leg on his shoulders every day.
Gene Knows what he has done to Finny, and as that finally sinks in, Gene wishes that he could change it. After an emotional confrontation led by Brinker in the assembly room, Finny runs out and falls down a marble staircase, rebreaking his leg. As the boys crowd around and Finny is being helped, Gene’s Guilt intensifies. Watching finny get helped and being able to do nothing, all Gene wanted to do in help him and wrap him up in a blanket(Knowles 179). Gene felt helpless and ashamed because he could not help Finny, even though it was his wrongdoing.
The guilt from Finny’s leg is important because it symbolizes a change in Gene and Finny’s relationship. After the break Gene does things with and for Finny because he feels he must to attone for his crime. For Gene its either confess or be guilty. Not knowing what his future held, Gene contains his awful doings to himself, because it is always easier to hold back than to let go. The guilt’s symbolic importance helps us understand more about Gene and Finny’s friendship, and about Gene as a whole. Gene’s Guilt is so great, it also helps us learn that it can drive him to temporary craziness.
While Finny is in the infirmary after his rebreaking of his leg, Gene is outside his window. Gene waits all night to get Finny alone, slowly getting more desperate and deranged. “I want to fix your leg up, I said crazily but in a perfectly natural tone of voice which made my words sound even crazier, even to me(Knowles 185). ” After realizing what he had said, Gene registers how crazy he had actually became Knowing that he would never be able to fix Finny’s leg, Gene’s reaction shows just how desperate he had become. Gene’s guilt helps us understand what he is doing and why.
With no good explanation, The guilt is important in explaining why Gene is doing what he is doing, and being crazy is how Gene’s mind copes. The Guilt is also symbolic because it symbolizes how the human body deals with extreme amounts of stress. Even though Gene’s experiences with peace and guilt may seem oceans apart,they flow together in the end. In the novel, peace and guilt represent tying two shoelaces, either one can come first, but they both will eventually entwine. In the last chapters, Finny dies and Gene heads off to the war.
With Finny’s death comes the end of Gene’s guilt, and with Gene heading into the Navy, It ends his fight for peace by changing the war to his peace. ” My fury was gone, I felt it gone, dried up at the source, withered and lifeless. Finny had absorbed it and taken it with him, and I was rid of it forever (Knowles 203). ” Gene’s guilt and anger towards finny was now gone, along with Finny, and he could now have peace. Gene’s guilt and the war were holding him back from peace, and now that he had no guilt, and was going into the war, his peace could come.
Instead of letting the war consume everything, Gene accepts the war, and becomes his own fragment of it. Peace and Guilt are important because they allow Gene, in the end, to finally find who the real enemy was. For Gene, his enemy was himself. Despite the inescapable war, you’ve found peace. With the end of a friend’s life, has come the end of your guilt. Gene Forrester has come to his own conclusion. Peace and guilt symbolize many things for Gene. His peace becomes clouded but still holds him together, and his guilt teaches us more about how he manages tough situations.
Gene teaches us how to find our peace when times get tough. Sometimes life can get sucked up by something and being able to center our minds and find peace can be a trying lesson to grasp. But when that lesson becomes easier, as does life. Though some of those tough times can come from guilt, knowing how to manage them can be tricky. In Gene’s case, he showed how over stimulating holding something in can be. Gene’s experience of peace and guilt are important because they are not only symbolic, but they also teach a lesson. Now if you went through what Gene had, How would you cope?