Term Papers on A Separate Peace

Term Paper Title	A Separate Peace
# of Words	15925
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	63.7

A Separate Peace

A SEPARATE PEACE: CHAPTER 1

Have you ever in your life gone through an experience so intense, so joyful, so painful, or just so important at the time, that you could only understand much later what truly happened? Isn't it a fact that when we're in the middle of an experience, we are often unable to think clearly about it because we're too busy feeling the moment's thrill or sadness to stop and come to sensible conclusions?

Our high school years are just such a time: of quick growth and self-discovery, of forging as well as breaking friendships, of proving ourselves to others, in the classroom and on the sports field, and a time when we want very much to be individuals and to stick to our own principles. Meanwhile, we're also getting used to being told what to do and what to learn.

The hunger to understand a significant period 15 years earlier in his life brings Gene Forrester, the narrator of A Separate Peace, back to his old high school in New Hampshire, the Devon School, on a wet and cold November day.

We meet Gene as he approaches the school through the streets of the surrounding town. He is struggling to conquer his fear at returning to the old place, trying to let enthusiasm carry him along: "I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky." We already know that something significant and life-changing must have happened to him a long time ago. He prepares us by building up an atmosphere of suspense as he nears the school that is familiar to him in appearance but also different--because he himself has changed, grown older and wiser.

Gene wants us to notice first "a long white marble flight of stairs" inside the First Academy Building. The stairs are hard and forbidding. He turns away quickly. We'll have to let the story unfold quite a bit before we find out what took place there fifteen years earlier.

NOTE: As Gene walks on, toward his second destination on campus, he remarks about the "scholarly and athletic" nature of the school. Aren't most high schools divided like this, whether they're public, private, or parochial, located in cities or in rural areas? Our minds are tested in the classroom, our bodies in the gym. And our friends often judge us on the basis of how well we do in one area or another. This double nature is a constant theme throughout the story, and we want to take note of it here, at the beginning.

Farther and farther beyond the confines of the immediate campus, Gene trudges through a fog and dampness that add to the sad and nostalgic mood he establishes.

Finally his quest is over. He finds a special tree, one long branch extending over the river, "not only stripped by the cold season, it seemed weary from age, enfeebled, dry."

"Nothing endures," he tells us, "not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence."

Did someone die at Devon 15 years ago? Is that the reason for Gene's solitary, melancholy quest on this damp November day? Preoccupied with his mission, he has failed to notice until this moment how soaked through he is, and now he decides to turn back.

A little break in the text--a larger space between the paragraphs--alerts us to the flashback. If we were watching a movie, we'd see Gene as a young man in his early 30s standing by the riverbank, wearing a raincoat and a broad-brimmed hat, looking up at this special tree with a wistful and knowing smile on his face. Perhaps he'd nod slowly in understanding. Then there'd be a slow fade-out and fade-in, and now we'd be seeing Gene as a boy of 16, standing on the same spot, looking up at the same special tree--only now he is accompanied by several pals.

The story moves back in time. It is now the summer of 1942. We are about to get some clues to the mystery of the tree at Devon and what happened there.

With Gene by the tree is his roommate and best friend, Phineas. As we come to know Gene better, we'll discover he's a...

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