Separate Peace

            A "Separate Peace" (published in 1960) takes place during the Second World War in a New England Prep School called Devon (based on Phillips Exeter Academy). This is around the year 1943, the time period where teenagers had to make a decision, either to enlist or wait and be drafted. In this novel the author John Knowles gives a good understanding of the war. The main characters Gene and Finny are always struggling between the "separate peace" and the real war. Even thought the story doesn't take place in a war battlefield, it just takes place in school. The war in Europe took away the peace from the boys, affected them, and influenced them to be ready for what was coming to them.
             The war encouraged Finny and the others to prepare for the war ahead of them. Finny created two games to imitate the real war. The first one was the "The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session." It was the "entrenched institution of the Devon school" (pg.25) and "They signed up as "trainees" on the spot." (pg.25). It was like a real war institution for training soldiers to jump of boats or planes that were about to get bombed. The second game was called Blitzball. During its invention Bobby Zane said, "Let's make it have something to do with the war." (pg.29). So Finny invents this game which is something like football, where you knock the enemy with the ball, just like the real war where you also go after your enemy. So Finny invented these two games to substitute the war.
             Gene was the one that felt the reality of the war. His four years in school was the war for him. He says, "For me, this moment-four years is a moment in history-was the war. The war was and is reality for me." (pg.32). Through the whole four years he felt the reality of the war. At the end of the story he says:.
             "I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.