A Separate Peace tells a story of initiation — the account of Gene Forrester's growth from adolescence into adulthood during World War II.
The novel opens with the narrator, Gene, returning to his old prep school Devon. Significantly, he makes his visit alone, not as part of an official homecoming or alumni reunion. The visit is private, his goal personal — to revisit two "fearful sites" from his youth. In encountering the past, Gene hopes to understand the crucial events that shaped his adulthood, in order to face them and finally move beyond them.
Gene's recognition of the changes in Devon shows the ways he himself has changed. The beauty of the campus still impresses him, even in a cold rain, but the school itself seems like "a museum," a place to observe rather than to inhabit. Gene has grown beyond his school and is no longer a part of it; yet the school and his memories of what happened here continue to shape him in ways he feels compelled to explore and finally to understand.
The two "fearful sites" Gene visits — a marble staircase inside the First Academic Building and a tree by the river — sharply contrast with each other. The tree, gnarled and old, represents an integral part of nature, simplicity itself, while the marble staircase, beautifully formed and decorated, expresses a highly polished culture. The two sites seem to show the double nature of Devon — natural landscape and rich interiors.
The narration makes clear that the tree and the stairs hold great, even terrifying significance for Gene, but the chapter gives no indication of what might have happened here. Gene's past, the narrator hints, somehow unites these two very different places. The intriguing combination sparks curiosity about the story that will unfold in the novel.
