A Separate Peace – Ch. 13

Finny  Boys don’t talk about what happened to Finny or accuse Gene of hurting him.  They couldn’t believe it.  They couldn’t understand it.  Gene recognizes that war, despite Phineas, does exist and that it grows out of the ignorance of the human heart.

Brinker’s Dad  Represents old, outdated view of war.  Thinks war is glamorous.  War defines a man’s worth.  Brinker – embarrassed by his father’s attitude.  Gene realizes the his private evil, which caused him to hurt Finny, is the same evil – only magnified – that results in war.

Boy’s - War  Boy’s not eager to go to war.  Gene – Navy  Hopes never to see a foxhole  Brinker – Coastguard  Relatively safe choice (won’t see as much combat)  Views adults’ attitude towards war as childish

Gene Learns  The enemy never comes from without, but always from within.  There is no defense to be built, only an acceptance and purification of oneself through love.  Every person will experience a breaking point where they recognize the reality of the world.  (some ideas borrowed from James Ellis)

Key Quote  “Because 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).

Key Quote  “Phineas alone had escaped this…Nothing as he was growing up at home, nothin at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last I had” ( ).

Key Quote  “I was ready for the war, no that I no longer had any hatred to contribute to it. My fury was gone, I felt it gone, dried up at the source, withered and lifeless. Phineas had absorbed it and taken it with him, and I was rid of it forever” (203).

Key Quote  “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.”