In this paragraph, the “separate peace” refers to the happiness and carefree spirit the carnival evoked, in such a dull wintertime and with the war approaching. When Finny returned to Devon, he transformed the winter session. The winter session was all about rules, war and adulthood. Finny revived the summer side of Devon, youth and innocence and happiness. This carnival is almost an extension of Finny. The boys, all caught up in war and school, found a place to be a kid, like they were during the summer session. “This afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace” is so out of place during the winter session (137). Knowles means “momentary” because it will not last forever, as foreshadowed in previous chapters, something awful is going to happen. It almost seems unreal and like a fantasy. This side of the boys at Devon is a “separate peace” from the war stricken environment they live in. The carnival helped them find a separate peace and momentary happiness. The carnival helped them regain the childhood spirit before Finny’s accident. Gene is saying this moment they had, almost stopped time and allowed the boys to be boys again. This moment helped strengthen the idea of a separate peace from the war which has swallowed all of America during the ‘40s. Finny’s attitude can prevail over the sadness around him and he can still find a way to keep the carefree spirit alive. However, the telegram from Leper shook this altered reality and brought the boys back into a time of war.
Overall, the Carnival created a separate peace for the boys of Devon to be happy and remember the blithe attitude of the summer session.
I completely agree with Mali that the winter carnival symbolizes a separate peace from the war. I also think that that Finny holds a winter carnival to try to rescue his friends from a world consumed by fear and anticipation. As Mali stated, the summer was a place of joy and no real fear, but all of those feelings disappeared when Gene knocked Finny off the tree and the war took over. When Finny is gone because of his injury, and the winter session begins, the world is plain and mysterious to Gene. However, when his friend returns and introduces the carnival, everything takes a turn for the better. Finny is the only one able to ignore the war, and focus on something else, in this case, the winter. According to Finny, "The winter loves me," and he goes on to say that "When you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love," (Knowles 111). When he returned to Devon, contrary to the summer, Finny was stopped by the rules in this serious time. Finny doesn't believe in the war and therefore he doesn't have so much fear, and he sees no enemies so he doesn't see why things can't be more like the summer. The winter carnival was a cherished victory for Finny, that is until his "Separate Peace" was taken away by the war once again. In this chapter we see once again how much the war has taken over Devon, and how Finny just wants to have fun, and be loved.
ReplyDeleteAside from the carnival, which is part of the peace, I also think that having Finny around adds to Gene's notion of peace. Throughout the story, Finny continuously is a source of amusement and distraction. His first event that gave people a separate peace was when they formed the Super Suicide Society. This gave the kids another world away from school and war which gets continued until Finny leaves. Before the return of Phineas, Gene is slow and cold, but this carnival caused by Finny helps give the boys variety and as the tree did, a sense of "liberation...[,] a momentary, illusory, [and] special separate peace."(137). Finny allows everyone to make their life at Devon a second life, trivial compared to his fun version of life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Mali and Dylan about how the carnival created a separate peace from the war, but I also think that the idea of separation from the real world not only applies to the carnival, but to all of Devon. Throughout Gene’s journey at Devon, we see multiple times where he finds shelter from the war in the school. It first came up during the summer session, and as winter crept up upon them, he thought that they had lost this shelter. Finny proved him wrong by creating the carnival. At the beginning of the novel, Gene narrates, “I think we reminded them of what peace was like, we boys of sixteen. We were registered with no draft board, we had taken no physical examinations” (Knowles 24). This quote shows how the boys at the school were, in a way, protected from the war wile at Devon. Devon acts as a safe haven for many of the people within it, just as it does for Gene and some of his friends.
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