Chapter 9
As the winter wears on and Gene spends more time with Finny, he starts to lose his hold on the reality of the war in favor of Phineas' optimism and innocent belief in peace.
"For hours, and sometimes for days, I fell without realizing it into the private explanation of the world....What deceived me was my own happiness; for peace is indivisible, and the surrounding world confusion found no reflection inside me. So I ceased to have any real sense of it" Chapter 9, pg. 115.
He comes to see the events of the world outside of the Devon School to be surreal and irrelevant to his own life, much as Finny centered his understanding of the world innocently around himself. Like Finny, Gene begins to believe only what he wants to believe instead of everything he hears and is told. He is becoming more independent and self-reliant rather than the dutiful, law-abiding schoolboy he had always been. Rather than being resentful of Finny's distractions from the mainstream routine at Devon, he now understands their importance.
Topic Tracking: Envy 12
After watching a propaganda film portraying infantrymen skiing down snow slopes , Leper Lepellier enlists in the army.. He is completely taken in by this due to his love of nature and skiing, as when Gene encountered him earlier in the winter while searching for the beaver dam. Yet Finny regards the film with skepticism due to his continued denial that there is indeed a war going on at all. Before going off to enlist, Leper comments on the process of evolution and how racing skiing had evolved to help people survive during the war by going fast. Gene wonders how this idea of how the strongest survives applies to his own relationship with Phineas. Leper's absence from the school is hardly noticed and does little to encourage others to enlist in the military, which would have happened had someone popular like Brinker Hadley been the first boy to leave for the war. The boys joke around about the war news they hear, proclaiming that Leper was there at each of those battles and attacks. Finny continues to resist believing any of it and keeps Gene close to him and away from the social groups around campus such as the one in the Butt Room. Gene continues to place himself under Finny's athletic training and still maintains good academic standing. While Phineas is handicapped, the wild excursions of the summer session are no longer possible since he can hardly move around the school's campus for classes without a great strain on his body.
Topic Tracking: Envy 13
Topic Tracking: War 15
Late winter settles down upon them and
"Winter's occupation seems to have conquered, overrun and destroyed everything, so that now there is no longer any resistance movement left in nature...and now winter itself, an old, corrupt, tired conqueror, loosens its grip on the desolation...sick of victory and enfeebled by the absence of challenge, it begins itself to withdraw from the ruined countryside...." Chapter 9, pg. 120
As ruined as the landscape has become, the snow begins to draw back and melt to prepare for the spring.
One day, delighted by the dismal weather, Finny declares that he will organize the first Devon Winter Carnival. Gene readily responds without displaying any sign of disagreement or bewilderment that he will lead the snow statues committee. It will take place in the park alongside the Naguamssett River. The other boys are given various duties as well including Brinker Hadley and Chet Douglas. Brinker has abandoned all participation in school life to reflect his disgust, but remains too afraid to enlist in the military and go into the war, especially since Gene refuses to enlist alongside him. He dresses as if he were in the military, with boots and khakis, while too scared to actually experience the real thing.
Topic Tracking: War 16
On the Saturday of their Winter Carnival, prizes are laid out to be won including a copy of Homer's Iliad, a lock of hair from a local girl named Hazel Brewster, photos of Betty Grable and money Brinker has taken from a Devon charity fund. Brinker also has brought kegs of cider, guarded by Brownie Perkins who leaves when the Carnival begins. Chet plays his trumpet for entertainment during the athletic games. Gene's snow statues satire Mr. Ludsbury, Mr. Patch-Withers, Dr. Stanhope, and Hazel Brewster. The boys soon rush Brinker and drink all his cider at Finny's command. This act dispels any authority from controlling their Winter Carnival. Finny burns the Iliad and their games open finally while Chet freely blows any trumpet tune that comes to mind. Gene performs many great athletic feats in the games and Finny dances one-legged upon the Prize Table. Brinker rebelliously smashes the snow statue resembling Mr. Ludsbury.
The boys relax and break free of what they had been reduced to by Devon; they become individuals with individual skills rather than thinking for the whole, as Mr. Ludsbury had earlier urged Finny to think about the war.
"[F]or on this day even the schoolboy egotism of Devon was conjured away....It wasn't the cider which made me surpass myself, it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace." Chapter 9, pg. 128
In the midst of this great celebration of the individual and the revelry that follows, the spell of freedom is broken by Brownie's delivery of a telegram for Gene. Finny comments that it must be a message from the Olympics committee. In reality, it is an urgent note from Leper asking to see him immediately since he has escaped from the army and needs help. Gene's momentary escape from the world outside ends since he must deal with the reality of the war, in spite of how Finny believes that it's all a fake.
Topic Tracking: War 17
View More Summaries on A Separate Peace
