Plot Summary Of A Separate Peace

The backdrop of World War II in A Separate Peace emphasizes the microcosmic war that is occurring in Devon. Military language that is used emphasizes the parallelism of the actual war and Gene’s war throughout the novel. Man’s destructive actions portray man’s inhumanity to man; eradication and killings of the war depict how cruel man can be. Finny’s inability to cope with the cruelty of this world causes him to become oblivious to what’s actually happening. Gene’s constant hatred and envy leads him to loose himself in Finny. He characterizes Finny to have no flaws and believes, “There was no harm in envying your best friend a little” (25). This little envy grew to the extent where Gene had no control of his action and destroyed his best friend’s future. To begin with, Phineas’ innocence is so pure that he creates a separate peace to avoid confrontation with the destruction of the war he is too oblivious to know he is fighting. His refusal to believe in the war shows his naïve childlike side. Finny only believes in the
good especially in sports, his belief “Nothing bad ever happened in sports; they were the absolute good “(35) shows his pure heart doesn’t believe there is a bad side even in the simplest things.
Secondly, Gene’s own identity crisis and jealousy forges a destructive war between him and Phineas.
His constant beliefs that Finny is trying to ruin his grades, is dragging him down and trying to outdo him cause him to twist their friendship into a competition that is deadly for both of them. Finny’s good hearted intentions cause Gene to resent him even more. When Finny broke the school record in swimming, he decided to keep between himself and Gene. According to Gene, Finny is “too good to be true” and “[p]erhaps for that reason his accomplishment took root in [Gene’s] mind and grew rapidly in the darkness [he] was forced to hide in” (44). His vengeful side grew deeper as he saw how pure Finny was and after her realizes “Now [Gene] knew that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between [them]. [Gene] was not the same quality as [Finny],” (59) which push him over the edge and his vindictiveness and cause the destruction of
Finny.
Although Gene’s intentions were not to hurt Finny and the fall was nothing but a blind impulse, his actions do more damage than he realizes. The fall helps Gene realize that “… [he] was used to finding something deadly in things that attracted [him]; there was always something deadly in anything [he] wanted, anything [he] loved. And if it was there for example with Phineas, then [he] put it there [himself],” (101) showing how destructive he can be to anything good that comes his way. Finny’s motive was to jump together from the tree as a ritual of them being best friends but Gene’s conscience caused him to jounce the limb and watch Finny fall. Once Gene realizes what he had done “with unthinking sureness [he] moved out on the limb and jumped into the river, every trace of [his] fear of this forgotten” (60). He shows no remorse or regret once he pushes his best friend out of the tree; instead he jumps into the water to symbolize his rebirth. The fact that the boys jump from this forbidden tree shows the parallelism with the tree from the Garden of Eden. The forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden is Gene’s act of causing Finny to fall from the tree. Both of the boys have lost their innocence in the fall, while Finny falls physically, Gene falls spiritually and a part of him is lost with Finny. Gene realizes that this war was over way before he enlisted, “ [he] was on duty all [his] time at school; [he] killed [his] enemy there” (204). This fall eventually leads Finny to face the truth about the war, Gene and how cruel the actual world is. Not only does Finny face the truth, but he also helps Gene mature and help him find himself. Finny’s lack of athletic abilities after the fall causes him to not only train Gene for the Olympics but guide him to redemption. Even though Gene’s intentions have done nothing but hurt Finny, Finny helped Gene “because it was what you had in your heart that counted” (56). His heart is so pure that he can’t hold a grudge against his best friend because he understands his intentions.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Finny had to face the reality of Gene’s actions, Brinker amplified Finny’s pain and lead to another fall. Brinker created a trial to reveal the truth about Finny’s accident for everyone to know. As he boys walk in Brinker makes the remark of “you see how Finny limps” (166) to try to break Finny and Gene’s friendship and to try to push Gene to tell the truth. Brinker says to Gene, “There is a war on, here's one soldier our side has already lost. We've got to find out what happened” (168). This remark indicates a reason for this trial and causes Finny to explore other options other than the fall being an accident. Brinker’s cruel intentions to let the truth out not only hurt Finny but break his heart.
To put it briefly, Finny suffers so much cruelty not only from his best friend but his peers that his pure heart can’t handle such hatred. The actual war and the microcosmic war reveal the truth about how destructive people can be, “[b]ecause it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart” (201). Gene’s ignorance of Finny’s loyalty and Brinker’s ignorance of true friendship reveals how inhumane people can be towards each other. The novel displays how cruel people actually are compared to a deadly war.