A SeparatePeace:Four Decades of Critical Response
Lois Rauch Gibson
Rejected at first by American
in England
American
publishers,
John Knowles'
in 1959, where critics admiringly
critics, responding
depth. sensitivity,
compared
in 1960 to the American
and "disturbing
agree about what the allegories
allegories"
A SeparatePeaceappeared
it to Salinger's
edition.
writings.
generally
noted its
(Aitken 754). They did not entirely
might be, n~r have the four decades
of critics since.
Critical response to the novel has been amazingly abundant over the forty-five
years since its British publication. producing a combined total of ten to twenty
reviews, articles, or books per decade. With one book, two articles, and one (not
yet released)
made-for-TV
should be equally
movie already
rich. Yet despite
produced
since 2000, the next decade
the changes in critical fashions,
the critical
approaches to this novel varied surprisingly
little until 2002, addressing primarily
the fall from innocence, the boys' school setting, the torments of adolescence, the
movement toward or away from self-knowledge,
the role of doubles, and narrative
strategies.
Early critical interpretations
of the relationship
between
the two main characters,
teenaged boys Phineas and Gene, cover a wide range. In 1959, Anne Duchene
wrote that Knowles "draws with tenderness and restraint the pure joy of
affection" between them (754). At the other extreme, Harding Lemay noted in 1960
"the corroding
flaw in friendship
between
young males. . . .a theme which echoes
in every sensitive man's experience" (246). None of the earliest critics directly
mentions homoerotic undertones.
But in 2002, two excellent articles appeared
Children's Uterature about Knowles' novel which, like Robert Cormier's The
in
Chocolate War, was not initially conceived as.adolescent literature, but which has
become part of that canon. Both articles address issues of gender and
homosexuality
in A SeparatePeace. This surprised me; not because I had missed
the clear homoerotic
undertones
in the novel (I had, in fact, been quite aware of
them), but because
the appearance
of two such articles in the same issue of a
journal
made me realize how infrequently
the criticism
had ever discussed
this
aspect of the novel. The major impact of discovering these articles was that I
decided to do a retrospective analysis of the changes in the criticism of Knowles'
1959 novel. sure that I would discover clear reflections of the social values and
critical preferences
of the eras in which the criticism
appeared.
For the most part,
Postscript
10
this did not happen. So what follows is an overview of the criticism, but not as the
chronological retrospective I had planned. Instead, the overview presents by
groups the major approaches to the novel, to which critics have returned over the
years. It begins with the recent articles by James Holt McGavran and Eric
Tribunella, who both apply queer theory to the book. Interspersed and at the end
are suggestions for future research and writing.
Despite
the complexity
of characters
and theme, Knowles'
to put it another
experiences. He recounts
focusing on his love/hate
excellent
nonconformist
leader. Gene especially
wants to
visit two sites: first, the tree out of which he 'had (most likely) caused Finny to fall
and break his leg; and second, the building where Gene's mock-trial was held,
which so upset Finny that he fell again, this time on the building's
when questioned
marble steps,
about the relationship
film version of the novel, claimed
but emotionally-the
during a 1972 Ingenue interview
"Finnyand
Gene were in love-not
book shows that there is nothing
about the
physically
wrong with that" (qtd. in
Bryant, War Within 68). Actually, it was John Heyl, the actor who plays Finny, who
made that comment. But Knowles did not contradict him.
and Tribunella
recognize
what McGavran
calls "the continuing
strength of homophobia
and homosexual panic in Western society" (79), though
they disagree about whether Heyl is correct that the book "shows that there is
nothing
way, he needs to put closure on his prep school
the story of the summer of 1942 and the year that followed,
relationship with best friend Phineas (called Finny), an
athlete and charismatic
11
Both McGavran
plot is fairly simple.
Narrator Gene Forrester returns to Devon, which is based on Knowles' own prep
school, Exeter. It is fifteen years since he's been back, and Gene has some spirits to
exorcise-or,
Gibson
wrong with" Gene and Finny being in love. Both McGavran
Tribunella
draw from the landmark
works by Eve Sedgwick
and
on male homosocial
desires and Judith Butler on gender identity, as well as from many other solid
literary, psychological, and philosophical works. But their conclusions about the
relationship
between
Gene and Finny differ'markedly.
McGavran's
article, "Fear's Echo and Unhinged
Joy: Crossing
Homosocial
fatally re-breaking the same leg. The complicated relationship between the boys, and
the roles in their lives of Big Man On Campus Brinker Hadley and loner Elwin
Boundaries in A SeparatePeace,"focuses primarily on the inherent instability and
(Leper) Lepellier form the basis for the plot. In the background
to which most of the boys expect to be sent before long.
upholders and subverters of their own relationship
McGavran provides overwhelming
and conyincing
looms World War II,
fluidity of gender roles, and the ways in which Gene and Finny "trade roles as
feelings between
Though
queer
McGavran's
and Tribunella's
theory to Knowles'
articles break ground
in terms of applying
novel, a few earlier critics considered
the sexual
overtones in the relationship between Gene and Phineas, and some students and
their parents noticed-sometimes
trying to ban the book (Sova 213-14). But most
Gene and Phineas,
the beach. to their admiration
and the codes of society" (68).
evidence of the intensity of the
from their wrestling
for each other's
scene, to their night on
physical beauty, to their merging
into one another as Gene deliberately dons Finny's pink shirt-the
one he had
earlier warned Finny might lead people to call him a fairy. Later, Gene actually
becomes an athlete for the crippled
Finny. This merging
of identities
substitutes
in
readers and critics generally rejected the idea of the relationship being more than
an intense friendship until French critic Georges-Michel 5arotte's Like a Laver, Like a
a way for physical expressions
Brother appeared in 1976 (English translation by Richard Miller in 1978). 5arotte
places Gene and Finny squarely in one of the "four archetypes of the homosexual
As McGavran notes, Gene's rejection of Finny's "open intimacy" (77) as they are
about to fall asleep at the beach is an example of what Sedgwick calls homosocial
couple"
panic.
(35), but even he discusses
Relationship
Rejected"
it under the heading
(44). Nonetheless,
"Intense Friendships:
he notes that in the essentially
all-male
world of the boys' school, "friendship turns into hatred out of fear of its changing
into love" (45). 5arotte believes that Gene's repression of his feelings has created a
loss of identity and fifteen years of neurosis; his return to Devon is an attempt
delve into his feelings, and an "expression
having
Hallman
missed out on happiness"
frustration
to
for
(46).
Bell Bryant quotes extensively
Within (1990), but concludes
of an insurmountable
of love.
Finny says he is glad to be sharing
this experience
with his "best pal," but
Gene is unable to respond:
It was a courageous
thing to say. Exposing
a sincere emotion like that
at the Devon School was the next thing to suicide. I should have told
him then that he was my best friend also and rounded
said. I started
to; I nearly did. But something
off what he had
held me back. Perhaps
was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought,
contains the truth. (55; also qtd. in McGavran 77)
from 5arotte in A Separate
Peace: The War
that Knowles was writing in "the repressed
19505
rather than the liberated 1980s," so he "represses any sexually overt overtones in
the intense relationship between Gene and Finny" (67). He notes that Knowles,
But at Finny's deathbed,
I
which
as the boys try to come to terms with what happened
at the
time of Finny's fall from the tree, and also with their feelings, Gene cries out in
agony, "Tell me how to show you."
also qtd. in McGavran 77).
Finny replies, "You've already shown me" (239;
Postscript
Gibson
12
Would the relationship
have become physical
had Finny lived? Would the boys have
experienced closer bonding, or homophobic
division? These are questions McGavran
asks, and he acknowledges
that, perhaps because of the historical context, "Knowles
leaves open the question
of Gene's adult sexual orientation"
(70). Still, he focuses on
Gene's joy as well as his fear, and on the way that "Finny's continuing presence" in
Gene's life saves Gene "perhaps not from some continuing sense of loss, but from his
feelings of guilt and fear" (78). Ultimately, McGavran sees this novel as a "brilliant
and teachable example of the clash between
homophobic
discourse" (79).
Tribunella
is less pleased
with the message
the fluidity of gender and the restraints
of Knowles'
novel, as his title indicates:
"Refusing the Queer Potential." He believes the all-male school setting places the
boys in a perfect position for male bonding, and also for the traditional crushes
common in same-sex schools. But by assuming that these crushes are part of
adolescence and will be outgrown, Tribunella argues, A SeparatePeacereinforces
the assumption
that heterosexuality
is the norm. In other words, the book suggests
that homosexuality
is a stage that one outgrows en route to adulthood and
heterosexuality-a
dangerous
and erroneous
of
Oearly more attention to Leper is warranted for many reasons. Not only is he the
key "witness," but he is also the first war casualty of their class; and as the
perennial outsider, he is aptly nicknamed. Similarly, Brinker's name becomes
suggestive when one realizes his role of bringing the boys to the brink -of the
truth, of a precipice, of revelations no one but Brinker ultimately wants to hear.
Despite much discussion of Gene Forrester's and Phineas's official names, no one
has yet examined the implications of the androgynous nature of Gene's and
Finny's nicknames, nor the more complex iSsue of the somewhat misogynistic
nature of their world.
No feminist critics have yet commented
on the paucity of women in the book. or
on the negative image of those few who appear. In the 1972 Ingenue article with the
nineteen-year-old
actors (John Heyl and Parker Stevenson) who starred in the 1972
film version of his book. Knowles affirms that dating was rare in the Exeter
Academy
of 1942. He recalls that boys were permitted
off-campus,
only three weekends
and they had to have good grades and a prior invitation
before being permitted
interview,
assumption.
13
Knowles
to go ("A Separate Peace Interview"). In a 1985 Esquire
admits, perhaps
a bit defensively,
that, "In the novel there is
not a girl in sight." But then he adds "that means nothing-women
every background
The novel also raises the specter of other books involving teenagers and
homosexuality,
in which one of the lovers dies, or other disasters occur. As
rate was high in the first decade of adolescent
who had had homosexual
experiences
novels involving
teens
(41), and those books were published
decade after A SeparatePeace.In answer
to the perennial
question,
a full
"Why does
Finny die?" Tribunella answers, "Finny must die precisely because he refuses to
reject the possibility of loving Gene" (92). Had he lived, the relationship might
have progressed -or it might not have. But TribuneUa believes that "Finny must
die so that Gene can become
to conform to social norms.\
a proper
of all ages and
treat it as central to their view of life" (qtd. in Bryant,
Understanding_A Separate Peace 36). Perhaps they do, but it seems nonetheless
odd that these boys do not even seem to think about girls-not
exactly typical of
Michael Cart notes in a 1997 article that does not discuss A SeparatePeace,the
mortality
a term
from a girl
man" (93); that is, Finny must die if Gene is
Though they break much new ground, McGavran and Tribunella also leave
openings to be explored. In a 2004 unpublished paper, Matthew Ferguson urges
that we pay more attention to Leper's description of the scene at the tree. He notes
that Leper, the naturalist, uses mechanical language-allusions to machine guns
and pistons, rather than to nature-to describe Finny's "accident." Ferguson
believes Knowles is suggesting that Gene could not help acting as he did, that "It
was a reflex. It was his inner mechanical man reaching out and rejecting his
childish, yet natural, homosexual urges" (4).
life at a boys' prep school, then or now. In fact, there is some superficial evidence
'that the boys are interested in girls: Brinker Hadley, at sixteen, owns a Betty Grable
pinup collection, and there is a passing allusion to the town's professional
one Hazel Brewster (163). But even mothers are almost ignored; Phineas's
does send him a pink shirt, and when narrator
belle,
mother
Gene visits Elwin (Leper)
Lepe1lier's home, Leper's mother is there-but
that's it for mothers. Even on
campus, Nurse Windbag and Mrs. Patch-Withers, nervous wife of the headmaster,
are the sole representatives
of womanhood.
Perhaps feminist critics interested in
addressing the role of women in the novel might look at the way C. Anita Tarr
explicitly
tackles misogyny
same journal
in The Chocolate War (104-10). Her article appears
issue as the McGavran
As for the central theme of this novel, which is set against the backdrop
War IT, that "wars [are] made by something
ignorant
252), surprisingly,
only one critic, British reviewer
considers
a pacifist reading.
Raven believes that Gene and Finny attempt
But their attempt
commitment-that
pacifism" -a
kind of "personal
of World
in the human heart"
(Knowles
"common-sense
in the
and Tribune11a articles.
withdrawal
Simon Raven,
a
from political folly."
is "doomed to painful failure unless everyone makes" the same
is, a commitment to reject "the Generals on both sides." Raven
Postscript
14
concludes that Knowles "makes it plain enough. . . that quiet common sense is a
feeble match for reality and the Generals," who are therefore "sure of [having] the
last word" (630).
Many other critics over the years have considered the implications of the war as
macrocosm and the school as microcosm, including a cluster of comments on the
war during the closing stages of America's
is not the real focus of any of the articles.
Bryant's
1990 book, A Separate
involvement
in Vietnam;2
but the war
with both literal and figurative meanings operative.
So the field is open for
deeper research into Knowles' treatment of war, perhaps in relation to other more
Adam, Christ, Dionysus, and now Apollo-exalted roles for a boy still in his teens.
Hallman Bell Bryant adds to this grouping the possibility that Phineas is an angel.
After noting that, like other heroes-Beowulf, Tarzan, Shane-Phineas has only
one name, Bryant discusses the possible origins and the significance of that name:
a sooth-sayer-king of Greek myth, as well as three biblical figures-Aaron's son,
who is a judge and priest; Eli's youngest son, a rebel and rule-breaker; and an
angel in the book of Judges (2:1). Bryant likes this last one best, and he builds a
case for Finny as Gene's guardian angel (War Within 114-15).
Ronald Weber (1965) describes Finny not as guardian angel but as "archetypal
innocent" who "must serve as the sacrifice" (27) to Gene's growing up and gaining
self-knowledge. But clearly both of these views see Finny as transcending the
human.
read by teens:. Stephen Crane's Red Badgeof Courage,
Walter Dean Myers' Fallen Angels, and, more recently, Dean Hughes'
Soldier Boys.
Some critics do see Phineas
"schoolboy
Another
way to categorize
past critical response
to A SeparatePeaceis by dividing
it into what I have labeled the Good FinnylBad Gene school (the most popular
one) and the smaller Good GenelBad Finny school of thought, though several
critics define one boy as good without
the ambiguity
and complexity
damning
the other, and a few emphasize
of both of these characters.
Adam, a Christ figure, a Greek god, an eternal or
archetypal innocent, a sacrificial victim-often
several of these at once. James
Mellard (1966) says that in this novel, "filled with Christian symbols and a theme
tragedy
as just a boy. Sally Kempton
seen entirely in schoolboy's
was the classic prep-school
someone else's destructive
(1968) calls the novel a
terms." She adds, "Its protagonist
hero. . . eccentric. . . innocent, straight, the victim of
complexity" (258). Walter McDonald (1972) says Finny
is "not a perfect Greek god, but a frightened prep-school boy not daring to face the
truth" about Gene's role in his fall or about the war (77). Several other writers,
including
Many critics in the "Good Finny" group see Finny as the hero of this novel. To
them he is an American
15
Peace: The War Within, actually begins with the line
"A SeparatePeacecan be read as a war novel" in a first chapter called "Historical
Context" (1). But other chapters are entitled "Before the Fall" and "After the Fall,"
typical war novels frequently
Gibson
Kathy Piehl in 1983, place the nov:el in the context of boys' school stories,
noting typical schoolboy concerns about classes and sports. In The Sporting Myth
and the American Experience (1975), Wiley Lee Umphlett sees Finny as the
prototypical athlete dying young, a kind of "incarnation of the sporting
before the fall" (84). Many readers incorrectly try to create a dichotomy,
hero
linked to original sin and the fortunate fall, Phineas becomes both Adam and
Christ" (41). Gordon Slethaug, in a 1984 article, agrees that Finny's "combined
identifying Finny with sports and Gene with scholarship, when actually Gene
excels at both academics and sports. He admits, though, that he is not a true
intellectual: Gene excels at school work because he can, not because he has any
good looks, fine sense of balance and tremendous
interest in learning
adamic,
unfallen
transcends
youth or some Dionysus
his twentieth
century
context"
energy create the sense of an
whose physical beauty predates
(262).3 So far we have Finny as Adam,
Christ, and Dionysus.
Marvin
Mengeling,
in a 1969 article, sees Finny as the embodiment
of two Greek
gods: Apollo and Dionysus. He is Apollo in summer, when he is associated with
sunshine, with truth (he tells Gene one should never lie, even about one's height)
and with healing, as he cures Gene's fear of jumping
Phineas is Dionysus, in the frenzied Winter Carnival
burning
of a copy of The Iliad.
for its own sake.
and
from the tree. But in winter,
which begins with the
A few critics see Finny's very innocence as diabolical however. Paul Witherington
(1965) while insisting on the novel's complexity and ambiguity in characterizations
and emotions, also describes Finny's innocence as a tool which he uses to
hypnotize others and get his own way-with teachers as well as classmates. Even
his insistence that there is no war turns out to be merely a way to mask his own
inability to enlist because of his lameness following the tree accident. Witherington
cites this false front as part of the illusion of innocence that Finny uses to control
others. In addition, Witherington suggests that Finny's rule-breaking and prankshis "skipping classes and meals, wearing the school tie as a belt, playing poker in
the dorm" (31), sleeping on the beach-may be serious breaches of discipline and
therefore "threats to the established order" (31). Yet what Witherington describes
Postscript
as Finny's
16
charming
those in power
"audacity"
off balance,
and "simplicity"
(31) -in
short, his style-throws
and he gets away with everything,
thereby
irritating
Gene, who would like to see Finny get into trouble at least once. Finny's ability to
get away with everything, however, also sets up the potential for chaos in a
carefully ordered and protected school world, as Witherington
points out. In this
sense, Finny is clearly not a force for good.
Joseph E. Devine offers a stranger
and far leSs convincing
reading
of the Bad
Finny/Good Gene variety. Devine (1969) insists that Finny is actually a Nazi agent,
while Gene is the all-American boy. It is not entirely clear whether Devine's
reading is serious. For example, he sees the handwritten
lines abov.e the printed
words in a Latin text not as a student translation but as a secret code.
Other, more credible critics in the Good Gene school, such as Bryant, see Gene,
Gibson
17
Drukman with playwright Richard Greenberg about Greenberg's play TakeMe
Out, which won three Tony Awards in 2003. The play is about baseball and also
about being gay. At one point Drukman says, "But this play is really more tragic
than the tag 'gay baseballplay' suggests.To me it's not wilike A SeparatePeace."
And the playwright responds, "Oh my God! You know, it's hilarious that you said
that-nobody has said that. The narrator, that's part of it, sure, as is the crisis of
masculinity, of course. But recently when I read the play I heard an echo of that
book, and I haven't read it in 20 years, so that's very astute. And it's also a love
story." But, he adds, the play is also about baseball.
And that leads to what I believe about A SeparatePeace:it is perhaps a love story,
but also a war story; it is a story about friendship, and the human condition, and
the fall from innocence, and much more. One wonders whether future critics will
rather than Finny, as the American Adam, largely because it is he who loses his
innocence in the Edenic world of Devon (War Within 52). Some, like Witherington,
move in new directions,
or recycle the approaches
consistently
and ambiguous
see Finny as the tempter in the garden, luring Gene from his studies (31). Through
loss of innocence, however, Gene achieves self-knowledge,
though partly at the
cost of his friend's life. Milton Foster (1968) believes Finny's death demonstrates
One new direction might include biographical criticism. Interviews with Knowles
have established connections between Devon and Exeter, and between his characters
the high cost of self-knowledge
and his acquaintances
in a corrupt
world: only if Finny dies will Gene
recognize the universal savagery and blind fury that lie at the heart of us all.
Through such recognition, Gene can rid himself of both the fear of war and the evil
within.
Some critics< attack Gene as a Judas or a self-deceptive
rationalizer,
who does not
really know himself even during his visit to Devon fifteen years after Finny's
death. But Witherington
sounds a note echoed by many when he argues that,
while Finny falls physically and says he has' suffered, his suffering has not led him
to wisdom: Finny says he has suffered and that's how he knows the war is not
real
- making
clear
he has not learned
from
his fall. Instead,
Gene,
who
falls
challenging
fully examined.
already
at Exeter. But his experiences
Perhaps
taken to this
text.
it is time for more extensive
and relationships
have not been
literary biography,
particularly
in response to the recent homosocia1 readings. For example, Knowles has said he
based Brinker Hadley on Gore Vidal, whom he knew only slightly at Exeter; later,
they became friends. Vidal, interestingly enough, has always refused to be described
as a "gay writer," rejecting the labels gay and straight in language that resembles
much of current
queer theory and criticism.
In a November
14, 1981 essay in The
Nation, "Some Jews and the Gays," he wrote, "The American passion for
categorizing has now managed to create two non-existent categories-gay
and
straight. Either you are one or the other. But since everyone is a mixture of
inclinations, the categories keep breaking down, the irrational takes over"(509).
spiritually, suffers for his sin (30). As a result, as in Greek tragedy, it is Gene who
gains wisdom, Gene who is the hero with the tragic flaw. Or perhaps he is merely
In another interesting
human, trying to grapple with fear and hatred in a flawed world. More likely he is
the conflicted American whom Knowles ~lf
describes in his book Double
both authors in the same chapter of his book on male homosexuality
fiction and drama. He does not directly link them, but his comments
Vision as "a careful Protestant
Knowles' Finny and Gene (Forrester), and about the prep school boys Flynn and
Sawyer of "The Zenner Trophy," a 1956 Vidal story, suggest parallels that go far
with a savage stirring
Wolfe in Karson 99), which sounds
Finny and Leper perceive
Here ends the overview
like a combination
in his insides"
(qtd. by Peter
of the ways his friends
beyond
Gene.
of the major critical reactions
to A SeparatePeacebetween
connection
between
Vidal and Knowles, Sarotte discusses
the boys' names and venues. That is surely a comparison
As we approach
the forty-fifth
anniversary
of the American
1959 and 2002. We now return to where we began: the most recent criticism, which
Peace,in a world where the all-male, all-white
finally addresses
become exceedingly
Recently,
the question
I discovered
kept in the closet, so to speak, for so many years.
an online interview
by former American Theatreeditor Steve
adolescents.
rare, John Knowles'
worthy
of study.
edition of A Separate
prep school environment
novel nonetheless
in American
about
continues
has
to speak to
Once we fought wars against fascism, then against communism,
now
Postscript
18
against terrorism. Before this background, teenagers attend school, bond with
peers, lose their innocence, encounter hate and ignorance and what Knowles calls
blind impulses; and each one inevitably struggles to develop an identity-sexual
and otherwise. As the world continues to change, no doubt the next four decades
of critics will have much to say about this resilient and compelling novel.
t One problem
with applying
queer theory to the book, no matter how convincingly,
In 1967, Milton Foster In 1968, and Peter Wolle In 1970; Wolfe also
examines the destructive effects of the Army on Leper, the first to enlist. Later, In 1986, Kathy Piehl
concludes her 1986 article with the foUowlng observation: "'The relentless way In which the schoolboy world of Devon Is changed during a single year demonstrates the coming of war In a graphic
way. Relying on and transforming traditions of the school story, Knowles Is able to explore the
conflicts arising naturaUy from the school setting and also those imposed upon an adolescent
society by the larger world beyond Devon's walls" (74).
3 In her 1967article on "The Theme of Freedom In A SeparatePeaa,' Franzlska Lynne Greillng
argues that Finny, In faC\."represents Greek Ideas more than OIrIstian" (48)because he respects
the freedom of the Individual and the striving toward individual exceUence.Greillng points out
that Finny's preference for Individuality over rules Is definitely more Greek than OIrIstian as welL
He breaks rules frequently, but he also breaks a swimming record for the joy of excelling. not for
fame: he pledges Gene to secrecy about the feal Still, as GreI1ingnotes, Finny Is not the perfect
Greek, since he fails to excellnteUectuaUy and EaiIsto know himself, an accompUshment at which
most readers agree Gene succeeds-in spite of, or more likely because of, Finny.
· See, for example, Moynahan and Piazza, both In 1981.
Aitken, Douglas. Rev. of A SeparatePeace,by John Knowles. San Francisco
Chronicle
26 June 1960: 29. Rpt. in Book Review Digest. Ed. Dorothy
Davison.
New York: Wilson, 1961.
P.
Philadelphia:
Hallman
Chelsea House, 2000.
Bell. "Phineas's
Notes on Contemporary
Pink Shirt in John Knowles'
Literature
A SeparatePeace."
14.5 (1984): 5-6.
-. A SeparatePeace:TheWarWithin. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
-.
Understanding A Separate Peace. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
Butler,Judith. BodiesThatMatter: On theDiscursiveLimits of Sex.NewYork:
Routledge, 1993.
-.
Gender Trouble: Feminism
and the Subversion
The ChocolateWar; A Novel. New York: Pantheon,
Robert.
1974.
The Red Badgeof Courage.Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall,
Devine, Joseph.
"The Truth About A Separate Peace." English Journal 58 (1969): 519-
20.
Drukrnan, Steve. "Greenberg's Got Game.", American TheatreOnline 19 (Oct. 2002).16
Mar. 2004<http://www.tcg.orglam_theatre/at_artic1es/AT_Volume_19/0ctober
02/at_ webl002-8reenburg.html>.
Duchene,Anne. Rev.of A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. Manchester Guardian1
May 1959:6. Rpt. In Book Review Digest. Ed. Dorothy P. Davison. New York:
Wilson, 1961.
Ferguson, Christopher Matthew. "Acknowledging
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