What does the author suggest about Leper's relationship with Gene and Finny?
Leper is an outsider by his choice and by virtue of his interests and personality and how they are perceived by the others. Gene and Finny are not actively antagonistic toward Leper; they simply have different sets of priorities than he does, which means their paths don't cross frequently. When they encounter each other, they are companionable and respectful, if somewhat mystified by each other's reactions to the events and conditions around them.
During the invention process of Blitzball, Leper was not an active participant at first, but he was dragged into the game.
Leper Lepellier was loping along outside my perimeter, not noticing the game, taggling along without reason, like a porpoise escorting a passing ship. "Leper!" I threw the ball past a few heads at him. Taken by surprise, Leper looked up in anguish, shrank away from the ball, and voiced his first thought, a typical one. "I don't want it!"
When Gene is on his way to help dig the train tracks out of the snow, he encounters Leper, touring around campus on skiis and searching for a beaver dam. Gene is as surprised and baffled at what Leper is doing as Leper is uninterested in working and getting paid for the shoveling. They carry on, each in his own world.
With Leper it was always a fight, a hard fight to win when you were seventeen years old and lived in a keyed-up, competing school, to avoid making fun of him. But as I had gotten to know him better this fight had been easier to win.
When Leper, who is older than Gene and Finny, surprises everyone by enlisting so he can become part of the ski troops, his departure is greeted with bafflement at first, then with quiet nervousness as the boys consider how they will handle the approaching date when they become directly involved in the war. The apprehension is magnified when Gene visits Leper and comes to understand what had truly happened to his friend's mind.
Fear seized my stomach like a cramp...For if Leper was psycho it was the army which had done it to him, and I and all of us were on the brink of the army.
Leper's awareness of what had actually happened at the tree during the previous summer was a threat to Gene, but - true to the general attitude of discounting anything Leper said or did - his testimony was not completed and his hints at the truth were not understood for what they meant.
Leper was a casual acquaintance who happened to be in the right place at the right time, and so became important in some isolated events.
What role does Leper play in A Separate Peace and how does his relationship with Gene and Finny suggest about his character?
There are several questions being asked here, so this answer will focus on Leper. While some readers might consider him a minor character, I would support the idea that he holds much of the story together and is a powerfully symbolic character. In a lot of ways, he mirrors Finny. He lives by his own set of rules, and he isn't all that afraid of what other people think about him. That's why he can spout off on how skiing is being ruined and feel confident in not jumping from the tree. He's also an innocent and peaceful character, and he is able to maintain a certain amount of distance from being caught up in the war hysteria. That's very much like Finny, and readers are shocked by Leper's enlisting.
On one hand, his enlistment shows that he is growing up, developing, and adapting with a changing world. That's why he is able to change his mind about the skiers after watching the skiing video. Unfortunately, Leper isn't quite able to adapt to everything the war throws at him, and that is why he is eventually discharged. Leper's enlistment and discharge are important pieces to Finny's changes. Leper's departure and return really cause the war to become real for Finny. Unfortunately, Finny isn't quite capable of ever moving far enough away from his fun loving, fantasy world that he exists in, and Leper knowingly/unknowingly predicts Finny's death by saying that things that don't evolve don't survive.
"You know what? I'm almost glad this war came along. It's like a test, isn't it, and only the things and the people who've been evolving the right way survive."
What role does Leper play in A Separate Peace and how does his relationship with Gene and Finny suggest about his character?
Leper, who loves to ski, is so taken by newsreels of ski troops in Europe in World War II that he enlists. However, the socially marginal and sheltered Leper is unprepared for the realities of the army and deserts, gaining a discharge for mental instability.
Leper is close to Finny and Gene. He takes their side against Brinker in the trial that Brinker stages over how Finny fell from the tree. He exposes Brinker as the bully he is and as the figure of orthodox authority. He tells him:
"I’m important too. You be the fool,” he gazed shrewdly at Brinker, “you do whatever anyone wants whenever they want it. You be the fool now. Bastard.”
Leper has stood up to Brinker and his faux authority as he stood up to similar authority in the army by simply refusing to play the game.
Brinker is the big man on campus, popular, and in favor of the established lines of justice and authority in his society. As his mock-trial shows, he is willing to be brutal to impose law and order. Leper, like Finny, stands for humanity and the values of kindness and loyalty over adherence to an abstract rule of law. He won't do what the system wants if it hurts other people.
Leper, though he loves skiing, is much more representative of the summer freedom of Devon, while Brinker is at home in the cold winter, when Devon's full authority and tradition are in play.
How are the boys treating Leper in "A Separate Peace"?
While the boys in "A Separate Peace" initially were either ambivalent or persecutory toward Leper, there is a great transition of those attitudes as the story progresses.
For instance, once Leper goes into the army, the boys begin noting all the wartime headlines about victories, and they credit Leper for each one. Their imaginations run wild with ideas about who he could be fighting or battles he could be winning.
Once Gene has a very intimate talk with Leper toward the end of the story, he discovers that his friend received a "Section Eight" discharge, reserved only for those who are mentally unstable. Leper describes his intense hallucinations to Gene, and Gene is so distraught by the descriptions of severed body parts and unreal visions that he abandons Leper at his home.
Throughout the story, Leper is somewhat of an "outcast," hence the symbolism behind his name. Lepers in biblical times were scorned and shunned for their physical condition, a pox-like infection that spread rampantly throughout that time and place. They, too, were considered outcasts.
How are the boys treating Leper in "A Separate Peace"?
Leper is different from the other boys, and the other boys at school either ignore him or make fun of him.
Leper Lepellier is a student who likes science projects and snails; he is not athletic and is indifferent to competitive sports and the rough-and-tumble activities preferred by the others. Leper's peers see him as eccentric, and Gene refers to him as "little lily-livered Lepellier" before Gene and Finny climb the tree on the evening of Finny's fateful accident (Chapter 4). As Gene gets to know Leper a little better, especially during the time Finny is absent from school, he begins to appreciate Leper as a person in his own right. Gene begins to understand the dynamics of social interaction among high school youth, and the tendency for the stronger, more popular students to scorn those among them who are different. He especially recognizes this inclination within himself, and, once aware of it, struggles to overcome it. Gene says that "with Leper it (is) always a fight, a hard fight to win when you (are) seventeen years old and (live) in a keyed, up, competing school, to (avoid) making fun of him...but as I (have) gotten to know him better this fight (has) become easier to win" (Chapter 7). Gene knows that Leper is an individual who deserves to be respected for whom he is, and, with burgeoning maturity, tries to treat him accordingly.
Who does Leper enlist with in A Separate Peace?
Leper enlists in the US Army after watching a recruitment film that glorified the nature of service in the Army. While Leper is the least likely student to enlist, the film convinces him that army life will be amenable to his personality.
...he is the first student in the novel to en-list in the Army, because a deceptive recruiting film convinced Leper that Army life is a clean, pure experience. (eNotes)
Leper goes AWOL soon after arriving at boot camp and runs away to his home. Leper realizes a few truths about himself and others during this time and comes to see the world with some bitterness. Gene discovers this when he goes to visit Leper.
Leper calls Gene "a savage underneath" and presents a quite different demeanor than he once had during this visit, lashing out at Gene, his only "friend".
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