Each book has its own focal point. This event or situation allows the book to become more developed and forces the characters to react to it. A Separate Peace has one clear central issue: World War II. Every event in this book happens as a result of the boys' preparation for being drafted. They jumped out of trees, trained for the Olympics, and the boys feel it's their duty to enlist in a section of the army, thus altering their educational careers for the time being. The war is all the boys talk about, whether they're eating a meal or talking in their dorm rooms. The war drives them to athletic excellence and forces them to choose if they will be drafted for the front lines or enlist once they turn eighteen. A world war would affect anyone's life, especially if they were about to be drafted and put on the front lines. It took a lot of confidence for these boys to overcome the fear of death and focus on their studies. Although they did do a fairly good job at that, the war still impacted their lives greatly.
             The first and most important way that the war had an impact on the action of Finny and Gene is the fact that people jumped out of the tree in preparation for the war. This prompted Finny to feel the need to jump from the tree. He saw future soldiers preparing for war, and knew he had to ape them in his own preparation for the war. As Finny so elegantly put it, "The real reason, sir, was that we just had to jump out of that tree.... We had to do that, naturally...because we're all getting ready for the war. What if they lower the draft age to seventeen?" (Knowles, 787). This shows that the war did impact what they did. If the war were not happening at that time, they probably would have no reason to jump from a tree into a river. Because there is a war going on, not only did they jump from a tree, but also the headmaster bought their story and let them go without punishment. ...