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Summary Of A Separate Peace By John Knowles

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How The War Influenced Lives At Devon A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is a fictional novel that depicts life at Devon, a boarding school. Set during World War II, teens Gene and Finny’s lives at Devon are overshadowed by the fact that at the end of the four years, they will be going to the war. The influence of the war can be seen through the students helping out with the war effort, their friend Leper enlisting, and through Finny’s perspective on the war. The students at Devon do whatever they can to help out with the war effort. In chapter 7, they pick apples. “First there was the local apple crop, threatening to rot because all the harvesters had all gone into the army or war factories. We spent several shining days picking them and were paid cash for it (Knowles, p.92).” Picking apples made the boys think of the war as boring, because they were left with the simple job. The Devon boys also helped out with the large amounts of snow. The analysis on spark notes relates their actions to their feelings. “Ultimately, the war has only an indirect and insidious effect on the students at Devon. It causes a tense feeling of unsettlement among the boys, disrupting their former lives yet never fully releasing them onto the new horizons at which it hints. The boys …show more content…

After he broke his leg, he denied there even was a war. He explains this in chapter 12, saying “I’ll hate it everywhere if I’m not in this war! Why do you think I kept saying there wasn’t any war all winter? I was going to keep saying it until two seconds after I got a letter from Ottawa or Chungking or some place saying, ‘Yes, you can enlist with us’ … Then there would have been a war.” Through this passage, this reveals how Finny truly felt after he was crippled and unable to play sports or join the army anymore. Finny denied that there even was a war at all, and none of the other students had experienced the war yet except Leper, who

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