September 10th ASP War & Text

Throught the novel, A Separate Peace, many different aspects of life greatly changed the way the characters were forced to live their lives. From the way in which they learned, trained, were brought up, and the direction that their futures would take, the boys were expected to change the course of their lives as a result of the raging war. Also, it caused their opinions of one another to change as their opposing views often collided during the course of the book.
Finny, whose athletic prowess is envied by most of his peers, is expected to put his body to work in the war. However, he is a bit of a conspiracy theorist and does not believe that there even is a war. According to his views, the war is practically a figment of the imaginations of the men in charge of everything. Contrary to this, Brinker is a firm believer in all things war related; he often pushes enlistment on his fellow classmates. Leper has a bit of a different situation. He becomes inspired immensely by the thought of skiing in the war. However, his experiences in the service, although not mentioned in detail, drastically change him. He is fidgety and not very mentally stable. The war allowed for a variety of paths in character development. This made the story very interesting.
These boys were not simply allowed to live the lives of the average teenager. They had to prepare themsleves for the lives that lay ahead of them, due to the damper the war put on their world. Also, I believe that the war was a bit of a metaphor for the war that Gene was fighting within himself about his actions against his best friend Finny. His dilemma relates to the fact that he let the jealousy within him overcome his friendship and bring him to the point of purposely harming Finny. This serves as somewhat of an internal war opposite the the real war in the world during the book. His heartless betrayal of Finny to advance himself in many ways mimics the actions of the world leaders who purposely went after other countries, or specific groups of people to simply gain power. The motives behind their ways and actions can be compared to Gene's.
World War II affected the book both directly and indirectly. It directly changed the lives of the characters and the way they grew up. Indirectly, it provided us with a comparison for the main conflict throughout the book. This conflict was Gene's constant obsession with getting ahead; it was never enough for him to be simply Finny's equal, he wanted to be more, and it proved that he would do anything in order to achieve that goal. Although it was not always blatant, the conflicts were quite tied together.