Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. A grades werenotthebest.He admits: winter “breathtakinglycold.” Moreover, his tough,” andthathefound theNewHampshire seemed “tooeasternforme,tooYankee, too felt outofplace.Hehassaidthathisclassmates to hissurprise,hewasadmitted.Atfirst,Knowles boarding school,PhillipsExeterAcademy. Much teen, heappliedtoaneliteNewHampshire his experiencesasastudent.Attheageoffif- mer vacationsthere. Massachusetts, andthefamilyoftenspentsum- father andmotherwereoriginallyfrom best-known worksaresetinNewEngland.His early twentieth-centuryminersstrike—Knowles’s of Riches, works reflecthisWest Virginia roots—in of coal-miningcountry. Althoughsomeofhis A Separate Peace Peace Separate A All ofmybooksarebasedonplaces,placesIknow emerge fromit.. very wellandfeeldeeplyabout.Ibeginwith that placeandthenthecharactersplot Knowles’s loveofNewEnglandstemsfrom Fairmont, West Virginia, deepintheheart uthor JohnKnowleswasbornin1926 flunk out..Thensomehow orotherI It quicklyseemedprobable that Iwould a playingfieldatExeterAcademy. for example,hetellsthestoryofan Study Guide A SeparatePeace Meet JohnKnowles —John Knowles began with Vein A Lauderdale, Florida,where hestillwrites. years tocome.Today, Knowleslives in Fort likely tocontinuehave anaudienceformany Heis ence atall.Knowlesmay be toomodest. mind heisdelightedthat he hasfoundanyaudi- does notwritewithaparticularaudiencein seem totroublehim.Hesaysthatbecausehe ful as essays. Noneoftheseworkshasbeenassuccess- story collection,atravelbook,andseveral Knowles haswrittenavarietyofnovels,short time towritingandtravel.Sincethen, was abletoresignfromhisjobanddevote proved tobeasuccess—somuchthatKnowles England in1959andtheUnitedStates1960, Separate Peace. before goingtotheoffice,heworkedon editor ofatravelmagazine.Earlyeachmorning, Peace. which weretoformthecoreof the stories“Phineas”and“ATurn intheSun,” earned alivingasfreelancewriter. Hewrote a bachelor’s degreein1949. in NewHaven,Connecticut,wherehereceived go backtoschool.HeattendedYale University program, butwhenthewarendedhedecidedto in theUnitedStatesArmyAirForceaviation ated fromhighschool.Hetrainedtobeapilot Knowles wentintothemilitaryafterhegradu- World War II.Likeotheryoungmenofthetime, United SatesdeclaredwaronJapanandentered Peace. his first—andmostfamous—novel, Knowles’s affectionfortheschoolisreflectedin The novel,whichwasfirstpublishedin During histwenties,Knowlestraveledand Shortly afterKnowlesenteredExeter, the falling inlovewithExeter. comfortably. .Meanwhile,Iwas term, Iwaspassingeverycourse writing, andbytheendofthatfirst had morepotentialthanaknackfor to study, discoveredIhadabrainwhich knuckled down,learnedbymyselfhow A SeparatePeace, Knowles thentookajobasanassociate but thefactdoesnot A Separate A Separate A 9 Introducing the Novel

To read A Separate Peace is to discover a intoxicate me. Classroom windows were open; novel which is completely satisfactory and yet so the aroma of flowers and shrubbery floated in. provocative that the reader wishes immediately We were in shirt sleeves; the masters [teachers] to return to it. were relaxed. Studies now were easy for me. —James Ellis, “A Separate Peace: The Fall from The summer of 1943 at Exeter was as happy a Innocence” time as I ever had in my life. Similarly, Knowles based many of the characters It is unusual for an author’s first novel to earn on former classmates of his. He has said that awards and a wide audience, yet John Knowles’s A Phineas (“Finny”) was, in part, inspired by David Separate Peace did just that. In 1960, the year that Hackett, a classmate who went on to play hockey the novel was first published in the United States, on a U.S. Olympic team. The inspiration for the book won both the William Faulkner Award Brinker Hadley was Gore Vidal, an Exeter gradu- and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation ate who today is a noted author. Knowles loosely Award. About ten years later, the story was based the central character, Gene Forrester, on adapted for the screen and made into a movie. himself. In fact, there is a little bit of Knowles in Today, A Separate Peace is standard reading in all the characters. The author says: many high schools. Why is the novel so popular It is true that I put part of myself into all four and so well respected? main characters in A Separate Peace: Phineas, One reason may be the time in which the Gene, Leper, and Brinker. In addition to using novel is set. The action takes place during the [Gore Vidal] for Brinker, and myself for Gene, early years of America’s involvement in World I had to, as most novelists do, draw from myself War II, a period in which many teenaged boys for everyone in the book. faced a difficult decision: Should they enlist or As summer turns into fall, the characters expe- wait to be drafted into the armed services? As a rience conflicts that many readers have found to be teenager during World War II, Knowles himself absorbing and true to life. If the conflicts seem real, faced this decision, and he drew on memories of it is because they represent the kinds of inner strug- this experience and others to portray what it is gles that everyone experiences. Like real people, Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. like to be a young man during wartime. Many the characters discover that the most challenging critics consider the portrayal to be sensitive and battles in life are often the battles within. convincing. In the words of Warren Miller: Mr. Knowles has something to say about youth THE TIME AND PLACE and war that few contemporary novelists have The central story of A Separate Peace begins less attempted to say and none has said better. than a year after the December 7, 1941, Japanese Although World War II affects the lives of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Shortly after characters in the story, it would be wrong to call A the surprise bombing, which claimed the lives of Separate Peace a novel about the war. The story more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers, the United States does not take place overseas, in the thick of battle, entered World War II. but rather in the United States, at a fictional New During the 1930s, when international con- England boys’ school named Devon. Knowles flicts began to erupt in Asia, most Americans did based Devon School on Phillips Exeter Academy, not want the United States to become involved in the school he attended as a teenager. The author conflicts overseas. As other conflicts erupted and affectionately recalls a summer that he spent there: spread, many Americans sympathized with the The great trees, the thick clinging ivy, the plight of longtime allies, and their fight against expanses of playing fields, the winding black- Nazi Germany. However, recalling the pain and water river, the pure air all began to sort of horror of World War I, most Americans still

10 A Separate Peace Study Guide Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. A Separate Peace Peace Separate A found othershortagesconsiderablylesstolerable.For frustrating lackofeverydayitemssuchasshoes,but and vegetables.Americanstoleratedthesometimes plement thesometimesmeagersupplyoffreshfruits by carpooling,andplanted“victorygardens”tosup- rallies, boughtwarbonds,conservedfuelandrubber did alltheycouldtoaidthecountry. Theyattended and thisneedcreatedjobs.TheAmericanpeople economy andlifestyle.Themilitayneededweapons, was theirdutytoenlist. an all-timehigh,andteenagersoftenfeltthatit men didnotwaittobedrafted;patriotismwasat tion agewasloweredtoeighteen.Manyyoung the UnitedStatesenteredwar, theregistra- were requiredtoregisterformilitaryservice.After tory, allmenagedtwenty-onethroughthirty-five tuted thefirstpeacetimedraftinnation’s his- quickly readiedthemselvesforwar. shifted tofavorU.S.involvement,andthepeople ion oftheAmericanpublicalmostimmediately the bombingofPearlHarbor, however, theopin- wanted theUnitedStatestoremainneutral.With an oval table in each classroom. Thisis an ovaltableineachclassroom. Plan,” inwhichtwelvestudents workaround Academy useswhatitcallsthe“Harkness teaching philosophies.PhillipsExeter most studentseventuallygoontocollege. course ofstudyisoftenchallenging,and The atagefourteen. school studentsenroll education. ofhigher studentsforsomeform prepare intendedto schoolsbecausetheyare tory oftencalledprepara- schoolsare Boarding itbegan. where States thaninEurope, schoolislessfamiliarintheUnited Boarding Did You Know? The warbroughtchangestotheAmerican governmentinsti- In 1940,whentheU.S. Many boarding schoolshavetheirown Many boarding In theUnitedStates,mostpreparatory Study Guide age howtogetalongwith a varietyofpeople. atayoung andactivities, learn sports involvedin thrive insmallclasses,getmore schoolsaythatstudents boarding prefer leave behindattheendofaday. Thosewho thatotherstudentscan with peerpressure and mustdeal in acompetitiveenvironment, spend timewiththeirfamilies.Studentslive to andmissoutontheopportunity pressure students facetoomucharound-the-clock to pursueknowledgeontheirown. schoolsalsoencouragestudents preparatory sharing ofideas.Exeterandmanyother intended toencouragecollaborationandthe faculty: in theStates,changedmakeupofExeter days, describeshowthe“manshortage”athome, the shortageofeligiblemen. Either Too Young orToo Old,”awomanlaments example, inapopularsongofthetime,“They’re Peace, end ofthewar.” To thecharactersin “for theduration”—aphrasethatmeant“until In short,Americanlife,asithadbeen,changed Some parents worry that boarding school thatboarding worry Some parents reasons that just tooold,tired,andbusy. Oneofthe we hadnoconnectionwiththem.Theywere campus weresomucholderthanwewere,that for thewarbymidyear. Allofthefacultyon and oneotheryoungteacherbuttheyhadleft the fallof1942.IhadayoungFrenchteacher IfirstenteredExeterin seventy yearsoldwhen All thefaculty.werebetweenfiftyand Separate Peace and talkthingsoverwith.. older persontopatternthemselveson,look friendship isthattheyhadnoonetorelateto; John Knowles,inanarticleabouthisschool “for theduration”seemsverylongindeed. [the maincharactersin ] develop thisintenselyclose A Separate A 11