Summary As this chapter opens, Finny is recruiting the other boys for the Suicide Society. Every night, Gene and Finny jump from the tree and then watch their friends jump in order to join the club. This nightly meeting is the only scheduled activity Finny never misses. Gene goes along […]

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Summary The morning after the boys first jump from the tree, Mr. Prud’homme, a substitute Master for the summer, scolds Gene and Finny for missing dinner. Finny tells Mr. Prud’homme that they were late because they were jumping out of the tree to prepare for military service — a far-fetched […]

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Summary As the novel opens, Gene Forrester returns to Devon, the New Hampshire boarding school he attended during World War II. Gene has not seen Devon for 15 years, and so he notices the ways in which the school has changed since he was a student there. Strangely, the school […]

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Gene Forrester The narrator, Finny’s roommate and best friend. Gene unfolds the painful story of his growth in a New England prep school during World War II, when his jealousy caused Finny’s tragic fall. Phineas (Finny) Gene’s roommate and best friend. A gifted athlete, Finny represents freedom and good nature. […]

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John Knowles’ best-known work, A Separate Peace, remains one of the most popular post-war novels about adolescence. Although set in World War II, the novel explores a crucial cultural theme of the ’50s, the motivations of a young man making a troubled transition from childhood to adulthood. Like the novels […]

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In the late 1950s, 15 years after graduation, Gene Forrester returns to Devon, an elite prep school in New Hampshire. Walking through the campus in the cold November mist, Gene remembers his experiences at Devon during World War II, especially the Summer Session of 1942, when he was 16 years […]

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