Topic Tracking: War
Chapter 1
War 1: The tree is used as a training site for seniors enlisted in the military to simulate the abandonment of a torpedoed ship. An excited Finny urges all of the boys to jump off of the tree into the Devon River with him, for he thinks that the war is a fun game just like any sport. Gene remains terrified, however.
War 2: Finny sleeps without wearing any pajamas because he is trying to be like a soldier even though he's still a schoolboy. His free-spirited mind does not understand the violence and destruction that accompany a war; the concept of being a soldier continues to fascinate him.
Chapter 2
War 3: Gene and his fellow schoolboys are somewhat admired by their teachers for their playful innocence. For all of the boys, Finny embodies the spirit of this innocence as well as the peace that occurs because of it.
War 4: The Devon School's campus is so beautiful that it is difficult for Gene to visualize the violence and destruction of World War II which he had been hearing about in the news. Devon makes him feel safe and at peace.
Chapter 3
War 5: Phineas creates a game called "blitzball" to pretend that they're all having a war. War seems like just another game for him because of his innocence and inability to understand how to hate or want to kill.
War 6: In spite of Finny's love of what he thinks is the military, Gene perceives him as being disillusioned. He loves sports and athletic challenge. Yet on the battlefield there are no awards for throwing a ball or swimming quickly. There is a reward only for saving a comrade's life or killing one of the enemy.
Chapter 4
War 7: Gene thinks that Finny is his enemy, trying intentionally to make him do poorly in his academics. The thought of Finny as an enemy makes Gene more comfortable than the truth--that Finny is simply a good and gifted person. For Gene to accept the truth, he would have to consider himself inferior to Finny because of his own selfish jealousy.
Chapter 5
War 8: After deciding for one moment that Finny had been his enemy followed by feelings of affection, the boys return to their perspective homes. Ironically, Gene's home is somewhere South in "Dixie" and Finny lives near Boston in New England. It is these two geographic areas which had also divided the United States during the Civil War.
Chapter 6
War 9: The Devon School has changed now that the Winter Session has begun. Young professors have been sent to the battlefield and the life the campus had during the Summer Session is now cold and dead. A militant student, Brinker Hadley, moves in across the hallway where nature-loving Leper had lived before.
War 10: While Finny is the freest while playing sports, Gene is terrified of them. They remind him of death and war. His violent thoughts keep him away from wanting to play any campus sports, despite Finny's encouragement.
Chapter 7
War 11: Everything on Devon's campus now takes on a resemblance to the war. Even Gene's own classmates talk to him not on equal terms, but rather as if they are officers in the military. They remain schoolboys. While interrogating Gene about Finny's fall from the tree, Brinker uses military words such as "treason" and "fratricide."
War 12: Gene Forrester decides to enlist in the military and is pleased at the thought of killing on the front lines. Nature's beauty, which he had marveled at during the summer, now appears to be cold and empty, as he gazes at the stars.
Chapter 8
War 13: After Finny returns to Devon School, Gene changes his mind about enlisting in the military, much to Brinker's disappointment. Gene is guilty about the accident and has a genuine desire to help his friend now that he is handicapped and can't get around very well on his own.
War 14: Mr. Ludsbury urges Finny to remember that the war is more important than the Olympics, to which Finny replies "No" because he refuses to believe that there is a war. The Olympics capture the spirit of his free-spirited athleticism more than that of the primal killing, which occurs during war.
Chapter 9
War 15: Leper, like Phineas, does not understand the violence that is involved in war and enlists only because of his love of nature after seeing a propaganda film showing soldiers skiing. He is very much disillusioned by this about what to expect.
War 16: Winter's spread across the campus is compared to the descent of knowledge about the war upon them all. Authoritative Brinker Hadley dresses up and pretends that he is in the military although he still remains just another schoolboy.
War 17: After forgetting about the war because of Phineas' latest game, The Devon Winter Carnival, Gene's illusion of escape is lost because of Leper's urgent letter declaring that he has "escaped." Gene hasn't heard from him since he had enlisted in the Army and leaves at once to visit him.
Chapter 10
War 18: As he walks to visit Leper at his home in Vermont, Gene is hopeful that the winter is going to end soon. The sun warms him and improves his mood. The winter has been compared to the war and with its departure, the war too would leave him. Gene wants everything to be peaceful again as it had been during the Summer Session.
War 19: Leper talks about how he had deliriously imagined that his corporal's face was on a woman's body and imagines the same thing about Brinker Hadley. Brinker had always been authoritative and Leper equally despises both him and his corporal in the Army.
Chapter 11
War 20: Most of the boys at Devon have plans to enlist in the military after graduating from Devon. Brinker remains upset that Gene won't enlist with him because of Finny, insisting that he will take charge and clear up the whole mystery of the accident.
War 21: After seeing Leper lurking around Devon's campus, Finny finally admits that there is a real war. Gene is surprised to hear this and declares that he had enjoyed pretending that there wasn't a war. He preferred Finny's innocent vision of it being made up by fat old men.
War 22: While on the tree branch, Finny and Gene are described by Leper as being "as black as death" with "golden machine-gun fire" flying past them because of the sun. Before Gene knocked Finny out of the tree, it is as if a war was being waged around with only these two fighting because of this mention of gunfire.
Chapter 12
War 23: Gene assures Finny that he would have been a terrible soldier if he had enlisted because he is such a good-natured person. The military is for those who can hate and kill, but Finny is not one who is capable of these feelings. Even after recognizing that it was Gene who intentionally knocked him out of the tree, he forgives him. He says that he understands how people just "do things" sometimes. Finny is greatly comforted after hearing Gene's wise words.
Chapter 13
War 24: Even though Devon School is overrun with military vehicles and soldiers, Gene still sees peace descending upon the campus with the onset of the summer of 1943. This is not because of his physical surroundings, but rather due to his memories of the earlier Summer Session of 1942 when he had romped about with that "gypsy band" of schoolboys, led by Phineas. This is the Devon that will always exist for him no matter how much it may change.
War 25: While Brinker Hadley blames the cause of the war upon his father's generation, Gene offers more insight by thinking that no single group is responsible. There is one same flaw that exists inside of everyone, including himself. It is something which must be beaten out or gotten rid of over time, as he has learned to do after making peace with Phineas.
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