Реферат: Notes For A Separate Peace Essay Research

Europe, the passing of the troop trains near Devon, the presence of

the military recruiters on campus, and Leper’s Section 8 discharge.

Instead of giving details, Knowles uses the war as a depressing

backdrop for Gene’s personal battles and as a contrast to the

normally peaceful environment at Devon. What goes on in the war

is not so important as the fact that there is a war going on to disturb

the peace of the students.

Literary Information

John Knowles has clearly indicated that the Devon in his book was

patterned after Exeter, the exclusive private boarding school that

he attended during World War II. He said of Exeter, “It was more

crucial in my life than in the lives of . . . almost anyone else who

ever attended the school. It picked me up out of the hills of West

Virginia, forced me to learn to study, tossed me into Yale, and a

few years later inspired me to write . . . A Separate Peace.

Physically, Devon and Exeter are very similar. Both had expansive

playing fields, a winding river, great trees, and pure air. Like Gene

and Finny, Knowles attended the summer session in 1943. During

that summer, the author met David Hackett, on whom he modeled

Phineas. He also belonged to a club whose members jumped from

the branch of a tree into the river as an initiation feat. In the fall of

1943, Knowles felt a change in the school. Many of the familiar

teachers had left to fight in the war. The students at Exeter, like

those at Devon in 1943, were expected to help with the apple

harvest and the clearing of the railroad tracks.

Even though much of the novel is written out of personal

experience, Knowles claims that he is not any one of the characters

in the book. He says he was not a good enough athlete to be Finny

and not a good enough student to be Gene. Instead, he has invested