The topic of this article will be not innocence but freedom, the Greek theme of A Separate Peace. (p. 1269)

Knowles is concerned with the implications of certain Greek ideas: the necessity and effects of freedom, and its corollary ideal of arete: the individual's fulfillment of his own excellences—moral, physical, intellectual, and political. In the first half, Phineas reflects these concerns.

Phineas has a love of excellence and fulfills his ability in the discipline of athletics. When Finny understands that Gene must study to satisfy his ability as a scholar, he says:

We kid around a lot and everything, but you have to be serious sometime, about something. If you're really good at something, I mean if there's nobody or hardly anybody, who's as good as you are, then you've got to be serious about that. Don't mess around, for God's sake….

Phineas represents Greek ideas more than Christian in another way. One of the basic contrasts between the two philosophies is that the Christians trust in God while the Greeks believed in man. In John 14:6, Jesus says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the father but by me." Hippocrates, who took medicine from the care of the gods to scientific study by man, said: "Life is short, art is long, the occasion instant, experiment perilous, decision difficult." The contrast emphasizes the Greek awareness of the limitations and the greatness of man. Finny represents Greek more than Christian ideas when he respects the individual, not inviolable rules. He trusts too much, however. Finny lacks Hippocrates' mature awareness that while there is much to respect in man, he is vulnerable to time and ignorance.

Phineas' respect for others is one of the reasons he lives successfully outside the rules. Finny loves freedom because in it, he can create "a flow of simple, unregulated friendliness … and such flows were one of Finny's reasons for living."… Finny's charm and his delight in giving pleasure to others allow him to lead other people to break the rules…. Finny himself does not need rules to keep him good; he has an inner harmony, a humanity which allows him to respond with affection and generosity to even the rule-givers who must punish him. Phineas assumes that others would be his equals if only they would ignore the rules. He cannot understand that rules protect individuals from their own and others' weaknesses. He does not comprehend fear, envy, rage at one's own moral ugliness, nor the desire for revenge; so he uneasily ignores these in the individual and in their public manifestation—the war. In Phineas is an idealism and innocence which protect him from seeing life as it is, but these also cause him to try to create around him his ideal world. In the novel, the best and last example of this special ability is Finny's Winter Carnival. Here, Finny's denial of war, of evil really, is most successful, and the festival has risen to anarchy and inspiration…. Appropriate to his defensive innocence, Phineas begins the games by burning The Iliad. And here is his flaw, Phineas does not fulfill one of the most prized Greek virtues—intellectual excellence. To Phineas, "freedom" is not the opportunity to "Know thyself."

Perhaps his imperfection makes him all the more Greek. Yet Phineas does partake of the combination of moral and physical beauty that Plato described in The Republic…. Phineas' physical beauty and personal harmony remind one of two fifth-century Greek sculptures: Myron's Discobolus and Polyclitus' Doryphorus. The body of the Discus Thrower is slender and competent, the face is serene, revealing an inner calm. The agony of violent effort is absent in this disciplined athlete. The Doryphorus depicts an athlete after performance who, like the Discus Thrower, is unmarked by effort. He walks with a unified, flowing movement, and his face reveals a quiet, inner fulfillment. Both statues reflect a Greek idealism and both express a Greek poise: pride without egotism and self-confidence without complacency. Phineas' poise, like that of fifth-century Greece, is vulnerable. As the Greeks feared, the weakness was in man's inadequate knowledge of himself and his world. During the decline of Greece, the resulting loss of confidence is evident in sculpture. In the Laocoon, heavily muscled figures struggle against inevitable defeat. These subjects have no harmonious relationship with the cosmos. In A Separate Peace, Gene destroys Phineas' unity by committing an act which Phineas cannot assimilate into his view of life…. Like the figures of the Laocoon, Phineas is unable to survive when he is betrayed. Gene's is the agonized struggle.

At the beginning, Gene thought of himself as Phineas' equal, first in excellence, then in enmity. Discovering Phineas incapable of hatred, Gene has to face his own moral ugliness and then strikes down Phineas for inadvertently revealing it to him. Rules are unnecessary and restricting for Phineas, but Gene has need of the rules, for he lacks the humanity to make the generous response to others. Gene fails the high demands of freedom, accepts himself as evil, and retreats to the rules. (pp. 1269-71)

But there is more goodness in Gene than he knows. Phineas, in his need, gives Gene the opportunity to do good and unknowingly gives Gene the self-confidence to be free once more. For Gene's act had damaged Phineas' athletic excellence and, worse, threatened the basis for Phineas' humanity; and Phineas uses his remaining strength to deny this loss. He proceeds to recreate his world through Gene's friendship and athletic development. In this experience, Gene, freed now of envy and despair, understands himself and Phineas.

In fulfilling this second gift of freedom Gene achieves a tragic victory. He is the only one in the book to know himself….

It is Gene, the scholar, who understands that his sin against Phineas was due to an ignorance of his own nature and that war is a manifestation of a general defensive ignorance in mankind…. Gene redeems his guilt with understanding. So, at the end of the book, Gene more than Phineas embodies the Greek ideal. He has arete; he has unity. Gene has penetrated the appearances which deceive others and made a harmony of his own that is more profound and more stable than Phineas'.

As pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us from the awful grace of God.

                                   Aeschylus

                                           (p. 1272)

Franziska Lynne Greiling, "The Theme of Freedom in 'A Separate Peace'," in English Journal (copyright © 1967 by the National Council of Teachers of English; reprinted by permission of the publisher), Vol. 56, No. 9, December, 1967, pp. 1269-72.