A Separate Peace: Chapter 1 Reading and Study Guideliterarygenres.yolasite.com/resources/A_Separate_Peace-… · Web viewChapter 1 Reading and Study Guide. I. VOCABULARY: Be able

A Separate Peace: Chapter 1 Reading and Study Guide


I. VOCABULARY: Be able to define the following words and understand them when they appear in the novel and in class discussion.

1. seigneurs: A man of rank, especially a feudal lord in the ancient régime

—“He and I started back across the fields, preceding the others like two seigneurs.”

2. cupola [architecture]: a roof in the form of a dome

—the Academy Building has a cupola.

3. convalescence

4. inveigle

5. prodigious

II. LITERARY TERMS: Be able to define each term and apply each term to the novel.

6. Setting—define.

7. What is the setting of this story? Be sure to include time, place, and atmosphere.

Point of View—define the following.

8. First person

9. Third person omniscient

10. Third person limited

11. What point of view does the narrator use in A Separate Peace?

12. What advantages does this point of view have over the other choices?

Define these terms:

13. flashback

14. metaphor

15. simile

III. QUESTIONS: answer the following questions.

16. The narrator says, “There were a couple of places now which I wanted to see. Both were fearful sites, and

that was I why I wanted to see them.” What are the two “fearful sites?”

17. Where is everyone when the narrator first returns to the school?

18. The narrator says, “I had overlooked [. . .] crucial fact.” What is the “crucial fact” about the marble stairs

that the narrator overlooked?

19. What was the field house called?

20. The narrator says, “[The tree] loomed in my memory as a huge lone spike dominating the riverbank,

forbidding as an artillery piece.” What literary device is the narrator/author using in this passage? What is

its significance?

21. The narrator says, “The tree was tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple beside the river.” What literary

device he is using? What is its significance?

22. What will be the name of the narrator and Phineas’s class when they start in the fall?

23. Where did the idea of jumping from the tree originate? The senior class had to do it as part of war training.

24. Why was the Summer Session established?

25. What physical similarity does the narrator and Phineas have?

26. What is Elwin Lepellier’s nickname? What does his nickname mean?

27. What choice does Elwin make about jumping from the tree?

28. Passages: the following passage might prove to be important. Re-read the sections with this passage

and think about why it might be significant? What does it mean? What are important ideas, imagery, or

words? How do they add or detract from the story? Do the author incorporate any literary devices?

Passage A: “Finny trapped me again in his strongest trap, that is, I suddenly became his collaborator. As we walked

rapidly along I abruptly resented the bell and my West Point stride and hurrying and conforming. Finny

was right. And there was only one way to show him this. I threw my hip against his, catching him by

surprise, and he was instantly down, definitely pleased. [. . .] When I jumped on top of him, my knees on

his chest, he couldn’t ask for anything better. We struggled in some equality.”


I. VOCABULARY: Be able to define the following words and understand them when they appear in the novel

and in class discussion.

1. emblem

2. inane

3. pun

4. Sibilant consonant


5. Alliteration

6. Example:

7. Foreshadowing

8. Imagery

9. Example:


10. Who reprimands Finny and Gene for not coming to dinner?

11. What is “even more forbidden than missing a meal”?

12. How old is Leper Lepellier? According to Phineas, why is this significant?

13. What are two possible reasons why the Masters seemed to be “modifying their usual attitude”? Why are the

Masters being more relaxed in enforcing the rules?

14. What does Finny dress in that seems to disturb Gene?

15. What does Finny say this shirt stands for?

16. What is the name of the substitute Headmaster?

17. What emotion does Gene start to feel toward Finny?

18. What event do the boys get invited to?

19. What did Finny use for a belt?

20. What is Gene’s emotion over the possibility of Finny getting in trouble?

21. What does Gene say made it difficult for them to believe there was a war going on?

22. What name do Gene and Finny give to their group?

23. Where are Gene and Finny when they come up with this name?

24. What does Gene realize would have happened to him had Finny not reached out grabbed him?

25. Passages: the following passage might prove to be important. Re-read the sections with these passages and

think about why they might be significant? What do they mean? What are important ideas, imagery, or words?

How do they add or detract from the story? Do they incorporate any literary devices?

Passage A: “[Finny] had gotten away with everything. I felt a sudden stab of disappointment. That was because I just wanted to see some more excitement; that must have been it.”

26. Write down all adjectives used to describe adults in this chapter. Then write what all the

adjectives have in common and why Gene chooses to use them.




1. blitzkrieg A swift, sudden military offensive, usually by combined air and mobile land forces. Used by

the Nazis during WWII.

2. venerable

3. inured

4. inebriating


5. Symbolism


6. What was the rule about opening the meetings?

7. What is Gene’s reaction to this rule?

8. What sport is Finny disgusted about having to play? Why?

9. What sport does Finny invent? Why is this important to the story?

10. Explain what the Lepellier Refusal is.

11. How does Gene remember America during war?

12. What does Finny do A. Hopkins Parker, 1940?

13. What is shocking about Finny’s response to breaking the record?

14. What details do we get about Finny’s athletic ability?

15. Where does Finny propose they go that requires a few hours bike ride?

16. When Finny and Gene are walking along the boardwalk, what does Gene notice other people are doing?

17. What does Finny say to Gene that makes him feel uncomfortable?




1. enmity

2. rivalry

3. vulnerable_


4. foil

5. Example:


6. How does the description of the setting in the first paragraph differ from the description in the previous

chapter?

7. How does Gene do on his trigonometry test?

8. What does Gene reveal to the reader as his real reason for trying to be valedictorian of his class?

9. What trickery does Gene think Finny as been up to?

10. What vulnerability does Gene see in Chet Douglas?

11. Why does Gene continue to attend meetings of the Suicide Society?

12. Why does Finny say Gene should come to the tree?

13. While Finny is on the tree limb, what does Gene do?



How do they add or detract from the story? Do they incorporate any literary devices?

Passage A: “I said nothing, my mind exploring the new dimensions of isolation around me. [. . .] He had never been jealous of me for a second. Now I knew that there never was and never could be any rivalry between us. I was not of the same quality as he.”

Passage B: “It was hard to remember in the heady and sensual clarity of these mornings; I forgot whom I hated and who hated me. I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise, or because these mornings were too full of beauty for, because I knew of too much hate to be contained in a world like this.”




1. infirmary

2. optimistic

3. Decalogue

4. jounce


5. personification

6. Example:

III. QUESTIONS: answer the following questions. Use complete sentences.

7. What did Gene do with Finny’s clothes while Finny was in the infirmary?

8. Who is Finny’s doctor?

9. What news does the doctor give Gene?

10. Why does Gene think Phineas wanted to see him first?

11. For what does Finny apologize to Gene?

12. What does Gene try to tell Finny but is unable to?

13. Where does Gene go for a month between sessions?

14. Instead of just going back to Devon, where does Gene stop off?

15. What does Gene tell Finny?



How do they add to the story or a theme? Do they incorporate any literary devices?

Passage A: “But when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had become, no character out of

daydreams. I was Phineas, Phineas to the life. I even had his humorous expression in my face, his sharp,

optimistic awareness. I had no idea why this gave me such intense relief, but it seemed, standing there in

Finny’s triumphant shirt, that I would never stumble through the confusions of my own character again.”

Passage B: “‘Oh, you know Finny.’ I didn’t, I was pretty sure I didn’t know Finny at all.”

Passage C: “It struck me then that I was injuring him again. It occurred to me that this could be an even deeper

injury than what I had done before. I would have to back out of it, I would have to disown it. Could it be that

he might even be right? Had I really and definitely and knowingly done it to him after all? I couldn’t

remember, I couldn’t thing. However it was, it was worse for him to know it. I had to take it back.”

Passage D: “I grinned at him. ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t do that,’ and that was the most false thing, the biggest lie of

all.”




1. exhorted

2. vindicate

3. sinecure


4. diction

III. QUESTIONS: answer the following questions. Use complete sentences.

5. What was one surprise the boys learned of about the Duration?

6. Who moved into Leper Lepellier’s room? _________________ What is significant about this boy’s name?

7. Gene says, “Although it was something to have this year’s dominant student [Brinker] across from the way.

Ordinarily he should have been a magnet for me, the center of all the excitement and influences in the class. [. ..] Now Brinker [. . .] had nothing to offer.” Why does Gene not have an interest in Brinker?

8. What are the two rivers?

9. Describe the two rivers and explain what each one symbolizes?

10. What was the name of crew manager?

11. What job does Gene take? What is significant about this job?

12. Why do you think he has taken this job?

13. What did Gene do to Quakenbush and why does he do it?

14. Who stops Gene to ask him about gaming and other events that occurred over the summer?

15. What is Phineas disappointed in with Gene?

16. Why does Gene not want to play sports?




Passage A: “here Brinker Hadley had established his headquarters. Emissaries were already dropping in to confer with him.”

Passage B: “I hit hard across the face. I didn’t know why for an instant; it was almost as though I were maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me.”

Passage C: “I stood there shaking in my wet sneakers. If only I had truly taken advantage of the situation, seized and held and prized the multitudes of advantages the summer offered me; if only I had.”




1. funereal of or relating to a funeral; mournful

2. contretemps An unforeseen event that disrupts the normal course of things; an inopportune occurrence.

3. fratricide

4. arsenic

5. glower


6. allusion

7. Example:

8. mood

9. tone


10. Although Brinker is built like an athlete, why isn’t he an athlete?

11. What does Brinker accuse Gene of when he visits Gene in his room?

12. What is the Butt Room and what nickname does Brinker give it?

13. What does Gene give as a false confession when he is in the Butt Room?

14. Why does he give a false confession?

15. How does Gene manage to get out of Brinker’s accusation?

16. Gene overhears a boy say as he leaves, “Funny, he came all the way down here and didn’t even have

smoke.” What is funny, or curious, about him leaving without smoking? And what is Gene’s reaction to this

statement?

17. Gene says, “[Leper] seemed from a distance to be a scarecrow left over from the growing season.” Gene also mentions that he hasn’t seen him all fall. What is significant about the metaphor that compares Leper to a

scarecrow?

18. What was Leper doing while the other boys shoveled the train tracks?

19. What is Brinker’s reaction to Leper?

20. What does Brinker decide he is going to do immediately?

21. What decision does Gene make while walking back to his room?

22. Who is in Gene’s room when he returns from his day of work?

23 Passages: the following passage might prove to be important. Re-read the sections with these passages and



Passage A: “They laughed at him a little, and he squirmed and looked guiltier than ever. He had a very weak foothold among the Butt Room crowd, and I had pretty well pushed him off it. His glance flickered out at me from his defeat, and I saw to my surprise that I had, by making a little fun of him, brought upon myself his unmixed hatred. For my escape this was a price I was willing to pay.”

Passage B: “Not long afterward, early even for New Hampshire, snow came. It came theatrically, late one afternoon; I looked up from my desk and saw that suddenly there were big flakes twirling down into the quadrangle, settling on the carefully pruned shrubbery bordering the crosswalks, the three elms still holding many of their leaves, the still-green lawns. They gathered there thicker by the minute, like noiseless invaders conquering because they took possession so gently. I watched them whirl past my window—don’t take this seriously, the playful way they fell seemed to imply, this little show, this harmless trick.”

Passage C: “Not that it would be a good life. The war would be deadly all right. But I was used to finding

something deadly in things that attracted me; there was always something deadly lurking in anything I wanted,

anything I loved. And if it wasn’t there, as for example with Phineas, then I put it there myself.

But in the war, there was no question about it at all; it was there.”




1. indignant

2. insinuation

3. bequest

4. gait

5. grimace

6. gull


7. personification

8. Example:


9. What does Gene decide to do now that Phineas is back?

10. What is upsetting Finny? He makes mention of it twice.

11. What does Brinker ask when he stops in Gene’s room?

12. What nickname does Brinker receive? Who gives it to him?

13. What was Gene going to do that seemed to make Finny sad?

14. How does Gene describe Phineas’s gait before the fall?

15. Where do Finny and Gene go instead of going to class?

16. According to Finny, why did the fat men invent the war?

17. What does Finny say he was training for before he broke his leg?

18. What does Mr. Ludsbury have to say about Gene training for the 1944 Olympics and what all exercise is

aimed for?




Passage A: “[P]eace had come back to Devon for me. So the war swept over like a wave at the seashore, gathering power and size as it bore on us, overwhelming in its rush, seemingly inescapable, and then at the last moment eluded by a word from Phineas; I had simply ducked, that was all, and the wave’s concentrated power had hurtled harmlessly overhead, no doubt throwing others roughly up on the beach, but leaving me peaceably treading water as before. I did not stop to think that one wave is inevitably followed by another even larger and more powerful, when the tide is coming in.




1. vagary

2. multifarious

3. accolade


4. theme

5. So far in the novel, what are some themes of the story?


6. What does Leper Lepellier do that shocks Gene?

7. Why does Finny try to get Gene to stop going to the Butt Room?

8. What event does Finny propose that he and Gene should organize?

9. What are the prizes for the Winter Carnival?

10. What were the snow statutes attacks on?

11. What is Brinker guarding that everyone wants? Eventually everybody gets some.

12. How do the boys behave after Chet blows his trumpet?

13. What does Phineas burn to start the Winter Carnival?

14. What does the telegram from Leper say?




Passage A: “I did not know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it; I wondered in the silences between jokes about Leper whether the still hidden parts of myself might contain the Sad Sack, the outcast, or the coward.”




1. presage

2. furlough

3. rejoinder


4. What do we learn about Gene’s war experience?

5. Where is the Christmas location?

6. What does Gene mean when he says that this night “presaged [his] war”? Why does he compare this journey

to Leper’s house to the traveling he does in the military?

7. What kind of discharge was Leper going to get? And what is significant about it?

8. What does Leper call Gene?

9. What does Gene do in response to being called this?

10. Gene says that Leper’s mother must have thought that “[h]e’s a good boy underneath,” and then he says,

“Leper was closer to the truth.” What does Gene mean when he says that Leper was closer to the truth? What

is the truth?

11. Describe what happens to Leper in the Army?

12. How does Gene react to Leper’s story of his experience?

13. Examine the journey motif in this chapter. This is the only chapter that takes place away from Devon. In the previous chapter, Gene receives a summons to see Leper at his house. The chapter begins with the following paragraph:

Passage A: “That night I made for the first time the kind of journey which later became the monotonous

routine of my life: traveling through an unknown countryside from on unknown settlement to

another. The next year this became the dominant activity, or rather passivity, of my army career,

not fighting, not marching, but this kind of nighttime ricochet.”

Keep in mind that the purpose for a journey or a quest in literature is to find something out about oneself. After

reading the chapter, what has Gene discovered about himself?

What does the first paragraph imply by making it clear that Gene continues to travel through unknown places for the whole year afterwards?

Passage B: “So Journeys through unknown parts of America became my chief war memory, and I

think of the first of them as this nighttime trip to Leper’s”

Does Gene discover anything about himself? If he does, what? And if he does, how does he react to it? How

does this chapter and the employment of the journey motif add to anything themes of the story.




1. pantomime

2. tacit

3 .guileful


4. symbolism

5 .Example from any part of the novel:


6. What quality does Gene think Finny has that make him want to see Finny, “and Phineas only”?

7. What does Gene find the boys engaged in when he returns to Devon?

8. What does Gene have taped above his bed? How is this important to the characterization of Gene?

9. Gene says, “There was no rush to get into the fighting; no one seemed to feel the need to get into the

infantry, and only a few were talking about the Marines. The thing to be was careful and self-preserving.”

From this statement and other details from the paragraph, what do we learn about the attitudes and privileges of

the boys at Devon, except for a very few, of which Gene considers himself?

10. Gene is translating Caesar for Finny. lCaesar was considered a tyrant by some in Rome. He was eventually

assassinated by Brutus, who was Caesar’s friend and was considered by many in Rome to be Caesar’s son.

Looking at the passage that discusses Caesar in the book, answer the following question: What purpose does

the allusion to Caesar serve to the story and its themes? There are probably multiple reasons.

11. What is the Latin inscription above the door of the classroom building? And how is it significant?

12. What do Brinker and others arrange in the classroom building for Finny and Gene?

13. Who is called in to testify and why?

14. What happens to Finny as he hurries out of the assembly room?




Passage A: While the group of boys lament over not having Leper in the assembly room to testify, Gene says,

“No one said anything. Phineas had been sitting motionless, leaning slightly forward, not far from

the position in which we prayed at Devon. After a long time he turned and reluctantly looked at

me. I did not return his look or move or speak. Then at last Finny straightened from this

prayerful position slowly, as though it was painful for him. “Leper’s here,” he said in a voice so

quiet, and with such quiet unconscious dignity, that he was suddenly terrifyingly strange to me.”




1. innate

2. undulation

3. animosity

4. amid

II. QUESTIONS: answer the following questions.

5. What happens to Finny after falling down the marble stairs?

6. When Gene sees Dr. Stanpole’s car running, what does he think about doing?

7. Gene says, “I was quite a card tonight myself.” Explain what he means and provide evidence to support that

he was a card. He is cracking himself up.

8. When Gene is outside Finny’s window, how does he behave? Who else has acted this way earlier in the

novel, and what effect is gained by making this implicit comparison?

9. After Gene leaves Finny, where does he sleep?

10. What has Finny been doing all winter?

11. Why did Finny pretend that the war did not exist?

12. How does Finny react at the funeral?




1. poignant

2. bellicose

3. scowl

4. Maginot Lines:


5. theme (define)

6. What are some of the major themes of this novel?


7. What do Gene and Brinker see being carried in the trucks?

8. What does Gene tell Mr. Hadley is plan for avoiding the war?

9. Gene says to Mr. Hadley, “And then Brinker is all set for the Coast Guard, which is good too.” Then Gene

tells that “Mr. Hadley’s scowl deepened.” What does Gene mean when he says “which is good too”?

10. Why does Mr. Hadley think it is important to try to get in the front lines of the fighting?

11. Besides that Gene is actually done with school, what do you think he means when says, “My schooling was

over for now”?

12. Passages: the following passages might prove to be important. Re-read the sections with these passages and



Passage A: As Gene sees the trucks coming to Devon, he says, “I thought the Jeeps looked noticeably uncomfortable from all the power they were not being allowed to use. There is no stage you comprehend better than the one you have just left, and as I watched the Jeeps almost asserting a wish to bounce up the side of Mount Washington at eighty miles an hour instead of rolling along this dull street, they reminded me, in a comical and a poignant

way, of adolescents.”

Passage B: “[I]t 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.”

A Separate Peace: 1942 & 1972

Author John Knowles and stars Parker Stevenson and John Heyl talk about then and now

A Separate Peace - John Knowles' modern classic - is as meaningful to today's generation as it was to its own generation. Why? To explore the continuing relevance of the book Ingenue invited the 47-year-old author to take part in a roundtable discussion on the differences between growing up in 1942 and growing up in 1972. Also participating in the discussion are the two 19-year-old stars of the film - John Heyl (Finny), a freshman at Bowdoin College in Maine, and Parker Stevenson (Gene), a sophomore at Princeton. Following is a record of their rap session.

KNOWLES: The first time I saw the film version of A Separate Peace, I was on the edge of my chair throughout, thinking "This is where they're going Hollywood, this is where they're going to lose." But they never did.

INGENUE: Could you compare the reactions to war among the young people in the early 1940's of the book and today?

PARKER: I remember the day when I found out my draft status. I had been assuming for a month that my number wouldn't be coming up for quite a while. One day someone passed me the newspaper and said, "Your number is 187 isn't it?" I was really floored and kind of staggered around in a daze because it just hadn't occurred to me that I could end up in Vietnam. I think my reaction was really different from what it would have been in 1942. Then everyone was ready to go and fight for the good guys. It was so simple.

INGENUE: Will the current generation accept even a "righteous" war like the 1940 generation did?

KNOWLES: Well, you know, there was the most enormous youth rebellion during the thirties. There was the Peace Pledge Union which supposedly involved the cream of British youth. They thought wars were ridiculous and said just what everybody says today. They said they would not fight in any war. Yet, when the chips were down, when their country was attacked, many of these boys joined the R.A.F. and were killed in the Battle of Britain. If the U.S. were attacked today, I think you'd find exactly the same reaction.

JOHN: Sure. If somebody were attacking my own house, my own country, I'd kill to protect them.

PARKER: I think the reaction to a World War II situation would be the same today as it was in 1942. Initially, people would question, but once patriotism got stirred up, the whole thing would gather momentum and we'd be in the same position as we were then - people all pulling together.

INGENUE: Besides the attitude toward war, what would you say is the greatest difference between the boys in the novel or the film and the present generation?

JOHN: The length of the hair.

PARKER: Well, in making the film, we had to almost kind of regress. I mean, we were playing people who were sixteen and seventeen and yet we were always told to think in terms of someone from our generation who was around fourteen or fifteen. In other words, we had to keep thinking of ourselves in terms of someone maybe two or three years younger. Young people are forced to mature sooner now than in the forties. I was doing things at age fourteen that guys in the movie were just beginning to do at sixteen and seventeen.

INGENUE: As I remember, the book didn't involve any dating. Wasn't that part of the Exeter scene?

JOHN: Dating was almost nonexistent. Exeter Academy in 1942 was in the middle of nowhere.

KNOWLES: I think you were only allowed three weekends a term, provided you had the grades, and you had to have a letter of invitation from somebody.

INGENUE: Do you think that fourteen-year-old boys are more promiscuous now than in 1942?

JOHN: Fourteen-year-old boys now are doing what I'm doing at twenty. I have my own car; I drive all over the place. Kids who are fourteen are doing the same thing; they don't have their own cars, but they're still getting all over the place. That's weird.

INGENUE: Well, how do you think a sixteen-year-old at Exeter today would look at the sixteen-year-olds of the book?

JOHN: They'd see them as conservative, probably term them uneducated, because they would have so little to offer. A 1942 sixteen-year-old wouldn't have done anything, what could he say?

INGENUE: In the forties, everybody who went to Exeter went directly on to college, didn't they? Mostly Ivy League colleges, too. What's the situation now?

JOHN: In my class, there were twenty-five of us who didn't have any plans for the year after graduation.

KNOWLES: That's a big improvement. You see, young people in my generation were sort of in lockstep, and it wasn't just the forties, either. In the thirties and in the fifties it was the same. No one ever dropped out unless he got sick or got kicked out or. . . Once in a blue moon some student would go to Wyoming for the winter to take care of horses, and we'd think, "What kind of breakdown did he have?"

INGENUE: And now it's accepted?

JOHN: Very. It's more than accepted, it's almost as if people think there's something the matter with you if you go straight on to college. Almost.

INGENUE: How about other differences between teenagers then and now?

KNOWLES: I feel there's been a lot of change in attitude and emphasis, along with all the surface changes like long hair - though I must say I don't think there's been any revolutionary change. On the whole, I think there's been improvement. Teenagers today are more free to be themselves and to accept themselves.

PARKER: I think that's true.

KNOWLES: It's always been very difficult for the oddballs, the Leper Lepelliers of this world. Today, Leper Lepellier would fit right in! In fact, the healthy part of it is that a Leper would be kind of treasured by young people.

INGENUE: How about a Finney; what about the attitude toward the jock?

KNOWLES: Well, he was more than just a jock. He had a very magnetic personality, let's face it. I suppose his "jockness" wouldn't get as much admiration today, but I think his personality would prove just as magnetic.

INGENUE: But what would give him prestige nowadays? Who's worshipped in schools like Finney was in 1942? Is it the athlete? The musician? The student? Or is it the screwball? Is the funky person today's hero?

JOHN: The black heroes. Or maybe the person who gets things organized best. I think it's a guy who can get himself well enough organized so that he can move on and get other things going - a guy of action, a together guy.

PARKER: You might say someone who's an intellectual. Intellectuals would be much more accepted now than in the forties. The same way that Leper would be more accepted today.

KNOWLES: Yes, I think that's a good point. At Exeter, a good student was respected in 1940, but in a small town he wasn't, unless he was a football hero too.

INGENUE: Between 1942, when you were at Exeter, Mr. Knowles, and 1960 when the book was published, do you think there were many changes?

KNOWLES: No, not at all. The fifties and the forties were Tweedledum and Tweedledee as far as changes are concerned. It was rather suddenly, in the early sixties, that something hit this country.

JOHN: I think a lot of it is just purely numbers. I remember the Woodstock Festival very distinctly. I was fifteen, and the thing that impressed me was how we all got such a rush out of just the whole crowd clapping because it made so much damn noise. That was the thing I remember most about Woodstock - how many people were there. Maybe you can call that a youth movement, just realizing how many of you there are!

Knowles: That's true. There are simply more young people than there ever were. you get this feeling of strength. Also, large numbers can be a drawback, making it difficult to lose one's anonymity.

Ingenue: Well, what do you think, besides "numbers" is causing these changes now?

Parker: The improvement of transportation is something that has played a major role, because in the forties, if you took a weekend and went to New York, it meant going there by train, and it took a long time and was awkward. Now, you get on the shuttle and it takes an hour!

Ingenue: In terms of dress, while you were at Exeter, John, and you at Brooks, Parker, were there dress codes that you had to conform to?

John: Yeah, definitely, very much so!

Ingenue: Do they still exist today?

Parker: They are certainly on the way out. Toward the very end of my stay at Brooks they started experimenting with relaxing the code and eliminating the coat and tie.

John: That's one thing that will never happen at Exeter. They're really steeped in the tradition of the coat and tie.

Parker: At least you're allowed to wear blue jeans at Exeter! We weren't even allowed to wear blue jeans at Brooks.

Ingenue: What do you think a young person who reads or sees A Separate Peace today can gain from it?

John: As far as I'm concerned, Finny and Gene were in love - not physically but emotionally - and the book shows that there's nothing wrong with that.

Parker: And yet, look what happened to Finny. I think the thing people get out of the book is identification with the process of growing up. It's rather comforting to see that other people do go through this, you know.

John: An incident like Finny's fall from the tree, or something with that emotional impact, must happen to most youth before they really grow up.

Ingenue: The recognition that something you do can play an important part in somebody else's life?

Parker: And affect your own life too. In the book, Gene learns that he can control his own growth as an individual, he can go through with the act of pushing Finny out of the tree. Which, I guess, is really kind of the beginning of his own emergence as an individual.

Knowles: Of facing up to his own real nature. The enemy he kills, of course, is his own self-ignorance, not Phineas.

Ingenue: So have we come to any conclusion about the differences between the world of Gene and Finny and the world of John and Parker?

John: People grow up faster, but basically it's the same thing happening.

Parker: And that's the appeal of the book - that there are so many things that are still similar.

A Separate PeaceTitle Comes from Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms

The title of this book comes from Hemingway's novel. Think about how A Separate Peace fits into the conversation that is started by Hemingway's book.

At the end of book 3, the protagonist Henry escapes his possible death by jumping into a river and swimming away. After this baptismal scene, which is similar to the river scenes in A Separate Peace, Henry says, "Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligations [to the war . . . ]. I would like to have had the [military] uniform off although I did not care much about the outward forms. I had taken off the stars, but that was for convenience. It was no point of honor. I was not against them. I was through. I wished them all the luck. There were the good ones, and the brave ones, and the calm ones and the sensible ones, and they desreved it. But it was not my show any more" (232).

One can imagine Gene saying these words in A Separate Peace. The next passage displays from where the title of A Separate Peace comes.

Henry then abandons his position as ambulance driver for the Italian army and takes a train to see his lover Catherine. On the train he says:

· "In civilian clothes I felt a masquerader, I had been in uniform a long time and I missed the feeling of being held by your clothes. [. . .] I had also bought a new hat. I could not wear Sim's hat but his clothes were fine. They smelled of tobacco and as I sat in the compartment and looked out the window the new hat felt very new and the clothes very old. I myself felt as sad as the wet Lombard country that was outside through the window. There were some aviators in the compartment who did not think much of me. They avoided looking at me and were very scornful of a civilian my age. I did not feel insulted. In the old days I would have insulted them and picked a fight. They got off at Gallarate and I was glad to be alone. I had the paper but I did not read it because I did not want to read about the war. I was going to forget the war. I had made a separate peace." (243)

Besides merely giving us the words of the title, this passage gives us a feeling and mood that John Knowles is trying to recreate. Gene feels the same way as Henry from A Farewell to Arms. There is the motif of clothing, and especially the use of someone else's clothing. Henry used to be the kind of guy who could easily be insulted and strike back, but now he has created a separate peace.

PAGE

14

Documents

A Separate Peace: Chapter 1 Reading and Study Guideliterarygenres.yolasite.com/resources/A_Separate_Peace-… · Web viewChapter 1 Reading and Study Guide. I. VOCABULARY: Be able