Gene Forrestor is established as the force of reality. This idea is established clearly in a speech Gene gives as the narrator of the story.

"Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person " the world today" or "life" or "reality" he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever." (Knowles, 32)

This statement explains that Gene must have something that is his "stamp". This stamp

"America is not, never has been, and never will be what the songs and poems call it, a land of plenty. Nylon, meat, gasoline, and steel are rare. There are too many jobs and not enough workers. Money is very easy to earn but rather hard to spend, because there isn't very much to buy. The war will always be fought very far away from America and it will never end. Nothing in America stands still for very long, including the people, who are always either leaving or on leave." (Knowles, 32)

As school goes on winter comes around, and two hundred boys are recruited to shovel snow off the railroad yards as part of the war effort. Then later on in the same chapter Brinker announces, "I'm giving it up, I'm going to enlist. Tommorow." This is just the beginning of war starting to seep into Devon.

The point in the book when everything turns is when Finny announced "Leper was going to take his first leap." This was not the first time that Leper had said this, but Gene went along anyway. When they arrived Finny announced that Gene and him were going to make the jump together. This is the first time that the two different realities are set next to each other. While on the limb Gene "Jounced the limb." (Knowles, 52) "Finny lost his balance and fell violently and shattered one of his legs while Gene jumps with unthinking sureness. Here we see that when the two realities compared side by side. Finny's falls and shatters while Gene's succeeds with sureness. "(Ellis, 313) After falling out of the tree Finny's way of creating a separate peace was finished. Finny will never be the same after this.

defines an individual standing up for something he believes in. The next paragraph shows that this is true where Gene continues, "For me, this moment-four years is a moment in history-war the war. The war was and is reality for me. I still live and think in its atmosphere." (Knowles, 32) Later in the same paragraph he goes on to say:

Eventually there is a trial to find out the truth about Finny falling out of the tree. The trial never found out if Gene made the limb bounce, but there was a deeper meaning in the trial. When the boys were arguing about the truth Finny says, "I just don't care. Never mind!" (Knowles, 169) Gene then narrates, "These words shocked Phineas into awareness." (Knowles, 169) Finny then runs out of the room and then falls down the stairs. Finny's separate peace is shattered along with his leg. Finny then dies in a simple operation; Devon's separate peace is then shattered. With out Finny's separate peace Devon comes to the reality of war is upon them. Devon sets up a shop for making parachutes. This goes to show that indeed, Gene's reality is the truth: the war is very real and very destructive. (Ellis, 317)

Gene goes to visit Leper and finds he has changed. The first thing he notices is Leper's left side of his lip lifting involuntarily. Gene comes to find that Leper abandoned the Army after realizing that he was going to receive a Section Eight any ways (a Section Eight is a discharge because of a lack of psychological control). It is found that Leper does appear to have mental illness and has turned into a violent person who is very angry-something that Leper definitely wasn't before he was in the war. Gene brings the news of Leper's situation back to the school to lay out the undeniable confirmation of the war. Leper has proven to us that there is a war and that it can kill the body and spirit.

"John Knowles communicates what war really is. He uses complex characters in a very complicated plot in order to convey the harsh, sad, cruel, destructive forces of war. Gene and Finny's relation

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2469
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)