In the last chapter of A Separate
Peace, Gene states that
it seemed clear that wars were not made by
generation and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something
ignorant in the human
heart.
This war within the
human heart involves an attempt to ward off a perceived menace by developing a
particular frame of mind, Gene continues. Thus, the war within an individual parallels
that of the war among countries. With World War II as the backdrop of the personal wars
going on among the boys at Devon School and within Gene, there are attacks upon enemies
in both settings, and in both settings all but Phineas, who knew no fear in his
innocence, there were symbolic Maginot Lines of defense set against the perceived
menace, or enemy. Only Gene's war ends before he goes on active duty: "I killed my
enemy there [at school]." Others, such as Leper, lost themselves in the world war, not
the personal war. Truly, in A Separate Peace, the war of the world
and the war at Devon School are reciprocally symbolic of each
other.
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