A Separate Peace: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

The boys act immediately when they hear Finny fall down the stairs. While Brinker makes sure that nobody moves Finny’s body, other boys run to get Dr. Stanpole and Mr. Latham, the wrestling coach who knows first aid. At one point, Brinker tells Gene to get a blanket for Finny. When he comes back, he gives the blanket to Mr. Latham and watches him wrap it around Finny, wishing all the while that he could be the person to do this. However, he knows that this might make Finny even angrier at him.  

When Dr. Stanpole arrives, he carefully places Finny in a chair and assembles a group to carry him away. As Finny goes, Gene watches his serene face, sensing that he isn’t used to needing help from others. Just before Dr. Stanpole follows the group out of the building, he tells Gene that Finny has broken his leg again. This time, though, the break isn’t quite as messy. 

Gene doesn’t want to go back to his empty dorm room. Instead, he sneaks into the infirmary and crouches beneath the window, hearing Dr. Stanpole and the nurse work on Finny. At one point, he thinks of how Mr. Latham always tells people to give things “the old college try,” and he imagines him saying this to Finny as Dr. Stanpole attends to him. This makes Gene laugh wildly, and he worries that they’ll hear him. However, his laughter later turns to tears. Sobbing, he hears Dr. Stanpole’s car drive away, so he stands up and tries to enter Finny’s room through the window. Immediately, Finny asks who’s there, and when Gene tries to explain why he’s come, Finny accuses him of wanting to give him yet another broken bone. He then flails his arms, his torso falling off the bed.

Gene watches as Finny lifts his torso back onto the bed. Gene then slips out the window again, walking through the New Hampshire dark. As he walks around campus, he feels as if Devon exists separately from him, as if he himself is part of a dream and doesn’t truly belong to his surroundings. When he awakens the following morning, he is underneath a ramp that leads to the Devon stadium’s door. Returning to his room, he finds a note from Dr. Stanpole asking him to bring Finny’s clothing to the infirmary, so he prepares a suitcase for his friend and sets off. On his way, he tries to make himself feel better by thinking of the war, contemplating the fact that a broken leg, in the grand scheme of things, is a minor travesty compared to the atrocities of battle.

At the infirmary, Finny tells Gene where to put the suitcase. His tone is matter-of-fact, but Gene notices that his hands are shaking as he inspects the contents of the suitcase. Seeing this, Gene says that he tried to tell Finny the truth when he visited him at home, and Finny assures him that he remembers. He then asks why Gene came to the infirmary the previous night, and Gene admits that he doesn’t know, other than that he had the overwhelming sense that he “belonged” in the ward with Finny. For a long time, the two boys simply look at each other. Finny’s expression suggests that he knows exactly what Gene means but doesn’t want to say so. Instead, he blurts out that he wishes there wasn’t a war happening because he won’t be able to contribute.

Finny tells Gene that he has been writing to various military branches all year, desperately trying to find a way to join World War II. Everyone he wrote to, though, refused to take him because of his leg. This is why he has spent so much time trying to deny the existence of the war, hoping that this would help him put the matter out of his mind. To make him feel better, Gene tells Finny that he wouldn’t be any good in a war anyway, since he’d make friends with the other side, teach them English, and start a baseball game. As he says this, Finny begins to smile despite himself, though this turns to tears. He then asks if it was just a “blind impulse” that led Gene to bounce him out of the tree, and Gene assures him that it was, hoping that he’ll believe him.

Finny tells Gene that he does believe him when he says there was nothing personal about what he did in the tree. What matters most to Finny, he admits, is that Gene didn’t feel a sense of hate toward him. Again, Gene assures him that this isn’t what led him to bounce the limb, though he doesn’t know how to show him this. Crying, Finny says that he already believes him.

After Gene and Finny make up, Dr. Stanpole tells Gene to come back to the infirmary around 5 that evening. By then he will have re-set the bone in Finny’s leg, and Finny will just be waking up from the anesthesia. For the rest of the day, Gene goes to class and focuses on his studies, eagerly watching the clock. When evening approaches, he makes his way back to the infirmary and sits on a bench in the hall. After he’s been waiting for quite some time, Dr. Stanpole emerges with his head down and his hands in his pockets. He then tells Gene that boys his age are going to have to face bad news quite a lot, so he will have to get used to what he’s about to hear. “Your friend is dead,” he says.

Dr. Stanpole says that setting Finny’s bone should have been a simple procedure and, for that reason, he saw no need to send him to a real hospital. However, a small amount of Finny’s bone marrow must have leaked into his bloodstream, because his heart stopped without warning. Losing himself to emotion, Dr. Stanpole says that the operating room always presents certain risks, just like war. He then laments the fact that such things have to happen to young boys like Gene and Finny. Having heard this news, Gene does not cry, nor does he cry at Finny’s funeral, since he feels as if he’s attending his own funeral, and one does not cry at such a time.