1. Chapter 10 Leper Gene visits Imagery- stars in window p.141
Deserts army
Secretly retreats home to VT
Gene visits
Something wrong with Leper
Pressure of army too great for him
Gene doesn’t want to understand the depths of Leper’s mental torture
Imagery- stars in window p.141
separateness

2. Chapter 10 Leper accused Gene of being They go for a walk
“a savage underneath…like that time you knocked Finny out of the tree.” p.145
Accusation infuriates Gene
Kicks Leper’s chair
Leper giggles incoherently
Gene guiltily accepts lunch w/ Leper
They go for a walk
Gene wishes the old Leper was back
Imagery- nature
Frozen wasteland
Leper’s fragile mental state- cracking like ice

3. Chapter 11 Snowball fight- imitation of real war
Gene tells Finny and Brinker about Leper
Boys take news hard
Reality of war set in at Devon
Leper is the reminder that war can kill the mind/spirit as well as the body
Brinker threatens Gene after chapel
Jealous of friendship between G & F
Says Gene should stop pitying Finny
Resents Finny’s “charmed” life & Gene’s role as protector
Brings up accident ominously- hopes by instilling fear in Gene, he can get truth

4. Chapter 11 Finny sees Leper on campus
He believes war is real, p.163
Brinker and 3 cohorts abduct Gene and Finny
Boys think it’s a prank
First Academy Building- late
“Here boys come to be made men”
Tribunal planned
Brinker- Main inquisitor
Want truth about tree incident
Leper in spotlight
“They moved like an engine”
Gene & Finny- neither able to operate alone
Gene- cold, unthinking

5. Chapter 11 Finny’s “separate peace” is shattered Cries, runs
Falls down marble stairs

6. Chapter 12 2nd fall Finny realizes he will never serve in war
Call adults for help- doctor, wrestling coach
Gene is by Finny’s side
Clean break, but needs surgery
Finny is angry- “You want to break something else in me?”
Finny realizes he will never serve in war
Wrote letters to every war department
Finny in the war - p.191
To him, war would be a sport
Everyone wins at sports
not equipped for reality

7. Chapter 12 Finny dies during operation Gene didn’t cry at funeral
Piece of bone marrow traveled to his heart- symbolism
Gene didn’t cry at funeral
You don’t cry at your own

8. Chapter 13 War comes to Devon Gene- navy, Brinker- coast guard
Far common
Parachute rigger’s school
Gene- navy, Brinker- coast guard
Brinker blames his father’s generation for the war
“…wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart.” p.201
Violence in every generation
The human condition

9. Chapter 13
Gene iterates the idea that Phineas was different from us all
No hostility or fear
Can’t survive in reality
Illusion of childhood = thinking world is a purely friendly place
“I never killed anybody…I killed my enemy there.” p.204
Finny wasn’t the enemy
Fear, violence, competition, ego
The enemy was self-inflicted
In a battle with himself

10. Last paragraph….What?? Maginot lines- historical allusion
built by the French as a defense against German invasion following World War I.  The defense system was built a great expense, requiring great effort, but it did little to slow the Germans once they attacked during World War II.
Our mental defenses
We don’t suspect that the real enemy, our own fear and hatred, lies within us

11. Other important literary elements
Symbolic nature of Names: Gene Forrester, Leper
Illusion vs Reality
examples
Tone – sense of reflection, contemplative
Loaded (lots of symbolism)
Adult Gene is still trying to learn and grow