A Separate Peace: Conflicts 06/05/2010 14:00:00

In John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, nearly every character at the Devon

School in New Hampshire struggles. The struggles are mainly internal. Main

character Gene fights against his jealousy of Finny, his best friend; Finny

denies the ongoing WWII because of his lack of ability to participate in it;

and Leper’s powerlessness to meet his fears of the war head-on. These

conflicts are predominantly man vs. self. During the course of the book, the

author focuses on the uglier side of human nature and the complexity of the

characters’ emotions—envy, fear, and helplessness.

Gene is the main character of the book and also one of the most conflicted

ones. His main flaw is his impulsiveness, which leads him to push Finny from

a tree and permanently injure him. However, he is also a selfish character in

many ways. After hurting Finny, Gene feels the need to admit that it was his

fault Finny’s leg was broken to clear his conscience. When he tries to tell

Finny, Finny violently rejects the idea. Gene must put Finny’s needs before

his own and overcome his focus on himself by not telling Finny of his guilt

until Finny is ready: “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…”
Finny is unable to accept Gene’s betrayal because he refuses to recognize

Gene as anything other than his best friend. As Finny tells him after Gene

attempts to confess, “…I did have just a trace of doubt, that was because

you talked so crazy here. I have to admit I had just a second when I

wondered. I’m sorry about that, Gene. Naturally I was completely wrong.”

Finny goes to great lengths throughout the book to justify Gene’s actions

toward him, until the eventual point when he can no longer do so. His knack

of denying things that don’t fit into his reality re-emerges on the realization

that he can no longer be a part of the war because of his injury. Thus, the

war no longer exists. As he says to Gene, “Do you really think that the

United States of America is in a state of war with Nazi Germany and Imperial

Japan?...Don’t be a sap, there isn’t any war.”

Yet injuries don’t necessarily have to be physical to keep a person out of the

war. They can be mental, too, as Elwin Lepellier, nicknamed Leper,

demonstrates. Leper’s view of World War Two: “It’s like a test, isn’t it, and

only the things and the people who’ve been evolving the right way survive.”

This view drives him to enlist in the ski troops; however, the training for it is

an ordeal that he is not prepared for. Unable to keep up with the rigors of

army life, Leper deserts. He is incapable of meeting his fears of combat and

“the enemy” head-on, instead choosing to escape from them. Leper’s conflict

is completely within his mind—he cannot bear the thought of failing the test

of WWII, and this drives him insane.

The main conflicts of A Separate Peace are confined within the characters

themselves. The jealousy of one best friend towards another, the denial of

“inconvenient” reality, and helplessness in the face of unrealized fears all

play their role. The man vs. self theme that runs throughout the novel is an

honest portrayal of the internal conflicts that often lie within humans.
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