A Separate Peace Introduction

© The English Teacher’s Pet, 2014http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-English-Teachers-Pet

Author

• John Knowles was born September 16, 1926 in Fairmont, West Virginia.

• At the age of 15, Knowles attended New Hampshire’s prestigious Philips Exeter Academy. The setting of the novel, the Devon School, is based on his experience there.

• He entered Yale University in 1944 and joined the U.S. Air Force shortly after.

• Knowles graduated from Yale with a B.A. in English in 1949.

• He worked for several magazines as both a writer and a critic.

Publication

In 1956 Cosmopolitan published Knowles’s short story, “Phineas,” which was later expanded into the novel, A Separate Peace.

His novel was rejected eleven times. Finally it was published in 1959 in London.The first American edition was produced in

February, 1960.

What the Critics Said…

There was immediate unanimous praise from British reviewers.

It was compared to J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (1953).

It was not an immediate best seller.However, by the late 1960’s it became a major

part of high school English curriculums.

Post-Publication

• A Separate Peace has sold more than nine million copies to date.

• The text earned Knowles somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 a year in royalties

• Knowles went on to publish several other novels, including Peace Breaks Out, a sequel to A Separate Peace (retained the Devon School setting but had a different cast of characters)

• The sequel was not as popular as the original

Knowles as Gene… and Finny

Semi-autobiographical: “What I set out to do in the novel was to unscramble, plumb, and explain what had happened during a very peculiar summer at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where I was a sixteen-year-old summer-session student in 1943.” -John Knowles

The characters in the novel based on actual friends and acquaintances of Knowles: “I put part of myself into all four main characters.”

Historical Context

The novel takes place in the 1940’s shortly after the United States had declared its involvement in WWII; America had troops in Europe and the Pacific.

The war brought out enormous levels of patriotism in all Americans.

Compulsory military draft registration was a constant concern for young men; draft dodging was virtually unthinkable.

Historical Context

Educational opportunities were limited for minorities and women. Public schools were fine, but most of the wealthy sent their boys to private schools.

All-white, male prep schools were an upper class student’s best chance to get into the best private universities.

Pressure to succeed at these prep schools was great.

A Separate Peace: Setting

Set in 1942 at a boy’s boarding school, Devon School, in New Hampshire

Story is told as a flashback from the perspective of an older Gene – Knowles skips back and forth between the early 1940s (Gene as a teenager) and the late 1950s (Gene as an adult)

A Separate Peace: Characters

Two best friends: Phineas and Gene

Phineas (Finny): athletic, reckless, charismatic

Gene: intellectual, shy, competitive

Supporting Characters: Elwin Lepellier (Leper), Brinker Hadley, Phil Latham, Mr. Ludsbery, Cliff Quackenbush, Dr. Stanpole

A Separate Peace: Theme Topics

Coming-of-Age: friendship- trust, betrayal, jealousy, codependency, forgivenesscompetitionself-understanding and awarenessrebellion v. conformity

A Separate Peace: Theme Topics

Guilt and Innocence: Between childhood pranks and serious consequences to choices made, Gene as narrator tries to find “peace” in his choices.

War and Peace: WWII as macrocosm, Devon as microcosmLevels of War- Global, Gene v. Finny, Gene v. himselfPeace v. War- Devon, Finny, denial, Winter Carnival

A Separate Peace: Point of View

Told in the first-person narrative style by Gene

Now an adult, he is looking at things from a much wiser and more mature perspective.

A Separate Peace: Motifs

Seasons- summer, fall, winter= phases of life, stages of self-understanding

The tree: “This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but that they are absolutely smaller, shrunken by age” (6).

Devon and Naguamsett Rivers- borders of Devon campus

Phineas- peace, idealism, youthful innocenceWorld War II- adulthood, awareness, reality