Preview

A Separate Peace: Leper Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
757 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Separate Peace: Leper Essay Example
Leper

In the book "A Separate Peace" there are many characters which are talked about and play a role in the story. The main characters Gene and Finny, short for Phineas, are what drive the whole story and are the center of the many themes and meanings derived from this book. Elwin Lepellier also known as Leper-Lepellier is not as visible as Gene and Finny, but plays a role that is essential to the story. Leper was one of those people who keep to themselves all the time and aren't looking to be recognized. He didn't really talk to anyone although he spoke to Gene. Leper was always off looking for beaver dams or snails to photograph or off skiing and admiring nature. He only shows up a couple of times during the story, but seems to have importance when he does show up. In the January of the winter session Leper surprises everyone by enlisting in the United States ski troops. Leper was only a few weeks away from being eighteen. In the Butt Room, Brinker brought in newspapers with headlines about the war and made jokes about Leper's success in the army. "Leper sprang up all over the world at the core of every allied success" (118). In the words of Gene "In the Shehu 2

silences between jokes about Leper's glories we wondered whether we ourselves would measure up to the humblest minimum of the army". Later on, Finny stopped going to the Butt Room since he thought that " If someone gave Leper a loaded gun and put it at Hitler's Temple, he'd miss" (119). Finny also drew Gene away from Brinker and his crowd and they focused on training for the Olympics, in their own world. When Finny tells Gene to come with him to Leper‘s tree jump initiation, Gene thinks that Finny is trying to ruin his studies because he thinks that Leper would never jump. The role Leper plays there turns Gene's attention away from his school work and toward competition with finny. With Leper in the army, the boys were drawn closer to the was because now one of them

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Gene looked up to everything Finny did. Whatever Finny did, Gene felt that he needed to follow his lead and do the same thing. Finny easily convinced Gene to jump out of the tree after diving in the water.…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Towards the end of the boys’ final year in high school, Brinker gathered all the seniors in order to find the truth of that summer day. Slowly but surely Finny began to remember more and more of that day. What finally set him off to realize what Gene did was the return of Leper. Leper enlisted and went out to the war but began seeing things so people thought he was delusional, so he ran away to his mother’s house and ended up wandering around Devon. At the senior boys’ meeting Leper revealed that while by the base of the tree and looking up at the branch where Finny and Gene were, he saw the shape of a body make a sudden move then he saw the other body fall from the trees. When Finny realized what Gene did he broke out in tears and stormed out of the room. While he was leaving Finny fell down a marble stairway and broke his leg again. The doctor said not to worry for this was a clean break and an easy fix. During surgery on Finny’s leg a bit of marrow escaped from the bone as he was setting it, entering Finny’s bloodstream and stopping his heart. Finny died.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The war has affected many people in the book, one being Leper, a student and friend of Genes at Devon. The war causes Leper to come home traumatized, causing everyone to believe he has gone crazy. An example of this is shown on page 172 when Gene says, "I kept quiet. To myself, however, I made a number of swift, automatic calculations: that Leper was no threat, no one would ever believe Leper; Leper was deranged, he was not of sound mind and if people couldn't make out their own wills when not in sound mind certainly they couldn't restify in something like this." Gene believes that Leper is so crazy that he will either not tell Brinker the truth about Finny's fall, or no one will believe…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most asked questions for A Separate Peace is: who exactly is the protagonist and antagonist? Most would agree that Gene is the protagonist, however is it Gene or Phineas that is the enemy? I believe that the real ‘bad guy’ in this book is Gene. He envied Phineas from the very beginning but didn’t admit it until a little later on. Whether it was getting away from trouble, having a natural athletic ability, or simply being modest and humble about things, Phineas seemed to have been better at almost everything.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When reality hits, he is unable to truly adapt and his mental state takes a turn for the worse. Gene receives a letter from Leper claiming that he has “escaped” from the war, the letter reads, “‘I have escaped and need help. I am at Christmas location. You understand. No need to risk address here. My safety depends on you coming at once. (signed) Your best friend, Elwin Leper Lepellier’ (pg 73).” When Gene goes to Vermont (“Christmas location”), he sees a change in Lepers personality, he is much more hostile and defensive rather than vulnerable and spaced out. Gene is very hesitant while approaching Leper whereas Leper talks to Gene with hostility, “Leper’s voice had thickened unrecognizably, ‘he changed into a woman, I was looking at him as close as I’m looking at you and his face turned into a woman’s face and I started to yell for everybody’” (pg 80). By saying his voice thickened “unrecognizably” Gene shows how he has never seen Leper speaking in that manner. Gene notices that Leper has been mentally scarred by the war after Leper gives him an account of what happened. Leper speaks about his experience, “‘he changed into a woman, I was looking at him as close as I’m looking at you and his face turned into a woman’s face and I started to yell for everybody’” (pg 80). Leper claims that he saw a man's face change into a woman's, this is a clear sign of…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Separate Peace Characters

    • 326 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The two main characters in A Separate Peace have one-of-a-kind personalities. Phineas is athletically talented; Gene has a chance of becoming valedictorian. Although Gene is a mediocre athlete, he could never meet Finny’s talents. Moreover, Phineas is extremely persuasive; for example, he impressingly compelled Mr. Patch-Withers’…

    • 326 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through the middle/end of the book; Finny and Gene do something different and unexpected, but once they get caught Finny takes care if everything. Say for instance when Finny set cup the obstacle course for gGene to run through around the Headmaster’s house and around most of the field. The Headmaster came out and Finny used his skill and just simply told the Headmaster that they were training for the olympia, in which they were, but they had gotten out of trouble and went on their way. As the reader reads through they will notice how Finny talks his way and others out of trouble in the easiest way possible. There isn't much left to say how the setting revealed Finny’s character, but he is good at what he…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Gene hears Leper assert “ [the army] turned everything inside out” it hit Gene that he cannot evade the war (140). Distracting himself from reality does not make the war go away. As Gene faces the war by enlisting, Gene begins to fully grow into a man. Due to the war, Gene believes, “… gone were all the fantasies such as the Olympic Games for A.D. 1994, closed before they had ever been opened” (149). Training for the Olympics helps Gene distract himself from the reality of the war. Not only does Gene try to distract him self from the war but he also tries to distract himself from his internal conflicts. Because Gene successfully distracts himself from the war, running away from the war exemplifies a childish way to solve the problem. Meanwhile, going to Devon and graduating at Devon, Gene has always involves himself to a war as “[he] was on active duty all [his] time at school, [he] killed [his] enemy there” (193). Gene considers his battle with Finny as his major conflict. Inevitably, Gene accepts that he cannot undo the damage he has caused as the war between Gene and Finny ends. Gene comprehends the fact that once the damage is done, it cannot be…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through Leper's enlisting, the boys find a way to bring the war to Devon. Attempts on Hitler's life were Leper's doings, the Tunisian campaign became "Leper's Liberation." In Gene's words: "In the silences between jokes about Leper's glories we wondered whether we ourselves would measure up to the humblest minimum of the army." While the boys are pondering how army life will be for them, Finny decides to hold a Winter Carnival; sports, ski jumps, slalom races and holly wreaths are all that matter, not Leper or the war for that brief time. All are intoxicated with life itself. Gene thought, "It wasn't the cider that 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, and separate peace." During this perfect, snowy afternoon of snow crystals and Olympics, they found their own peace from the war. It was as far from it as they ever could have gotten; a reach almost to the heavens, free of the troubles and stress they were used to, a utopia of friendship. Nothing could poison their peace, nothing until Leper's…

    • 1325 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Bierce describes the soldiers he states, "Not all of this did the child note;" (127). Bierce describes the boys thoughts on the war victims as something from a circus, "Something too, perhaps, in their grotesque attitude and movements- reminded him of the painted clown whom he had seen last summer in the circus, and he laughed as he watched them. On they crept, these maimed and bleeding men, as heedless as he of the dramatic contrast between his laughter and their own ghastly gravity. To him it was a merry spectacle." (127). The boy compares the soldiers to his father's negroes, "He had seen his father's negroes creep upon their hands and knees for his amusement- had ridden them so, fancying them his horse. He now approached one of these crawling figures from behind and with an agile movement mounted it astride."…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gene and Finny are the two main characters of the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles. They are two very different people but manage to still be friends despite. During the course of the book, it becomes evident Gene’s envy for Finny. However given the nature of Gene and Finny’s personalities it is almost impossible for Gene to not envy Finny.…

    • 664 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The inhumane treatment the soldiers receive from their superiors cause them to become animalistic. Instead of sharing a mutual respect, the generals treat the soldiers as if they were their pets and abuse them on countless occasions. Since the soldiers cannot protest against their generals, they are forced to bear through the brutal treatment and eventually accustom themselves to it. This treatment is displayed when a recruit is suffering from pain as he has been marching for hours and “the officer takes him by the scruff of the neck and hauls him to his feet” (101) showing that the soldiers are treated no better than a disobedient dog. While on rest, the men are forced to sleep in "a large barn with a gaping roof" (18). The soldiers must deal with makeshift sleeping quarters filled with "ancient tray straw" (18) that is “so vermin-infested that if one stands and listens when it is quiet he can hear the scraping and scurrying of the pests underneath” (18). In this way, they are treated like animals by the officers who are quartered in "a deserted chateau" (18). Even on rest the soldiers are tormented by their officers. Instead of resting, which the action implies, they perform “[interminable] routines of fatigues” (19) to the point where some of the soldiers, such as Brown, begin to resent their generals and “wish that [they were] dead“ (20). No matter where the soldiers go or what…

    • 1041 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The novel A Separate Peace is a story about two best friends, Gene and Phineas (Finny), who both attend the Devon school in New Hampshire in 1942. Gene Forrester is an intellectual, confined, straight-laced seventeen year old, while Finny is an athletic free-spirit who isn't afraid to say what he thinks and is admired by everyone. The story is a flashback in which Gene recalls his fears and insecurities during the midst of the Second World War at the Devon school. Out of jealousy and the fear that Finny is trying to sabotage his studies, Gene shakes a tree branch that they were both standing on, and Finny falls out of the tree and shatters his leg. It is at that point where their relationship changes into more of a codependency which leads to them developing their own individual identities by living within their own illusion that World War II is a mere conspiracy. Finny dies suddenly during the operation on his broken leg , but Gene doesn't cry. He deals with the tragic news with a sort of tranquility because he believes that he is a part of Finny. Gene reflects on the constant enmity which takes over the present youth, and he believes only Finny was immune to this plague.…

    • 2001 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Another effect the war had on Paul’s generation was comradeship. The soldiers felt an incredible bond with each other because they have gone through the dangers and horrors of war together. To Paul, his comrades are “more to him than life” (Remarque 212). “They are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere…” (Remarque 212). Paul “belongs to them and they to him” (Remarque 212). Paul and his fellow comrades have an intense friendship that is strengthened by their relentless fears of terror and hardship.…

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Separate Peace

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages

    There are three main characters that are affected by innocence or ignorance. Leper was affected by innocence. Leper was an innocent student who was the very first student to sign up for the war, and the only reason he had done this is because he saw that soldiers were skiing. He loved to ski and it interested him. He had no idea what he was signing up for when he did. Leper had the innocence of a child. Even when he spoke he had a child’s way of putting his words. On page 93 the book explains how Leper never used to hear announcements due to him sketching in his notebook. The following page of the book explains Leper’s mild tentative voice and Leper himself explains how he was scared to go down the steep hills for skiing because he said you can break a leg on steep hills. It is true but the ages of the students at Devon are like 18 and that is an age where people their age are reckless. Leper is also interested in animals. He was searching for a beaver dam while the other boys were helping to shovel out railroad tracks. It also mentions him sketching birds in his notebook. One day while watching a video about the war, the boys saw some troops skiing. Leper had seen this and he became excited. He wanted to enlist, and he did. Leper was previewed as an innocent…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays