Assignment #8) Re-read the last paragraph on the bottom of 136 and on to 137. Paraphrase what Gene is saying and interpret the usage of “separate peace.” What is a “separate peace”? Why is included here? What is it’s significance? (Emily)

A “separate peace” is Gene and Finny’s fictional world with no war or competition where Gene escapes his guilt. After the Winter Carnival when the boys are joking around, Gene explains that Finny is under the influence “of his own inner joy” (Knowles 136). This means that Gene and Finny are happy with their lives and they are in a moment of contentment. The characters create their own separate world away from reality. This separate world is different from the real world because there’s no enmity between Gene and Finny. After Finny encourages Gene to show off, Gene thinks, “… for on this day even the schoolboy egotism of Devon was conjured away…” (Knowles 136). From Gene’s point of view, the competitiveness is gone in his peaceful world. In their world, Gene becomes a new person because he doesn’t feel guilty and he does the wild ad crazy things that Finny convinces him to do. When Gene thinks about their peaceful world, he says, “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” (Knowles 136-137). Finny builds up this illusion of peace in an imaginary world, which causes the characters to escape from the war and reality. This is important because the war is coming closer to them as they try to stay away from it. Gene and Finny have accomplished their own world separate from the real one.