Analysis: Chapter 6–7
The shift in seasons from summer to winter parallels a
more general shift in the novel’s mood from the carefree innocence
that preceded Finny’s fall to a darker time in which a note of doom,
associated with the coming war, grips the school. This shift is
given a physical embodiment in the two rivers on campus. The fresh,
clear, bubbling Devon River represents the summer session and its
naïve carefree character. But this river flows into the salty, ugly,
unpredictable Naguamsett, which is joined to the ocean and controlled
by the large, global forces of the tides. This river can be seen
as a symbol of a dawning era of bitter conflict and disempowerment
for the boys. Whereas Finny, with his spontaneity and rebellious
spirit, directs the activities of the former era, Brinker Hadley,
a stolid, rigid personality and an advocate for authority and order,
now succeeds him as the boys’ leader. Indeed, not only does Brinker
support order in the classroom and the dormitory, but he also functions
as a force for order in the larger moral landscape. It is he who
first suspects Gene’s guilt and eventually insists on bringing out
the truth and seeing justice done at whatever cost.
Gene’s desire to manage crew seems to be an attempt to
escape Finny’s shadow, as it places him far from the central, physical
aspect of the school’s athletics program, in which Finny excelled.
Yet the reader quickly realizes the irony of this attempt when Gene
remarks that the job usually goes to disabled students: Gene, of
course, is not disabled, but Finny is. Once again, it seems, Gene
proves unable to separate his own identity from that of his friend.
When the odious Quackenbush (a minor character whose absurd name
suits his role as a much-disliked clod) makes fun of Gene for being
“maimed,” Gene responds violently even though he isn’t maimed at
all. One can argue that he is fighting for Finny—or, perhaps, that
he is fighting as Finny. Gene himself is acutely aware of his increasing
identification with his friend, especially when Finny insists that
if he, Finny, cannot play sports, then Gene must play them for him.
At this moment, Gene understands that he is losing himself and becoming
a part of Finny. One might understand the joy that Gene consequently
feels as stemming from a deep desire: he may dislike himself so
much by now that his dearest wish is to abandon this self altogether.
In these chapters, the war takes on an increased significance
in the novel, having lurked in the background thus far. As the title
of A Separate Peace suggests, World War II plays a central role
in the fabric of the story—yet it does so without ever directly
affecting the lives of the characters. None of the boys goes into
battle and none except for Leper even joins the army until after
graduation. A Separate Peace is a war novel without tanks, guns,
or bullets; it is the shadow of war and the knowledge of its approach
that affects the characters. Gene, in his unwillingness to play
sports, sees the violence of football as mirroring battlefield violence,
and he imagines tennis balls turning into bullets. Indeed, his narrative
betrays a sudden obsession with war and its images: he compares
the snow to an advancing army and thinks of the flakes’ slow accumulation
as paralleling the almost undetectable yet steady encroachment of
the war on the peacefulness of life at Devon.
Ultimately, the war has only an indirect and insidious
effect on the students at Devon. It causes a tense feeling of unsettlement among
the boys, disrupting their former lives yet never fully releasing
them onto the new horizons at which it hints. The boys know that
they will have to join the fighting eventually, but, still young students,
all they can do is wait. They stand shoveling snow off train tracks
while real soldiers ride on the trains to their assignments. The world
is at war, but the Devon boys still exist amid a “separate” illusory
peace. Only Leper, eccentric and gentle, seems untouched by the
peculiarity of their situation and simply continues with his hobbies
of skiing and nature-watching. Leper, in a way, is still in the summer
session—still innocent, not yet fallen from grace. But the rest
of the boys have moved on psychologically. Thus, Brinker’s desire
simply to enlist, to put a stop to the gray and fruitless waiting period,
seems perfectly understandable, as does Gene’s decision to join
him. When Gene eventually abandons his plans to enlist, he does
so based upon his relationship with Finny—not because he has ceased
to hate the gloom of waiting or the feeling of uselessness.
