In John Knowles, A Separate Peace, the setting is set in the New Hampshire area, along the Devon and Naguamsett rivers. The main setting is set at a military prep school called Devon military prep. At the beginning of the book Gene, the narrator, goes back to a certain tree. This tree is not an ordinary tree. This tree is the main setting towards the beginning of the novel. The tree is where the boys, Gene and Finny, jumped out of the tree. The book then goes to the swimming pool where Finny decides to take a swim. When he swam, he ended up beating the schools swimming record. The novel then goes to the Butt Room. The Butt Room is very dark and nasty. This room is where the kids go to have a smoke, and talk about other peoples’ problems. Gene goes down there to defend himself from what all the other kids were proposing about what Gene did to Finny. The boys thought that Gene purposely pushed Finny off the tree, but Gene defends himself with a lie.

The genre of this novel is coming-of-age/ tragedy fiction. Although this novel is relevant to the forty’s, it is still considered fictional, because all the characters are fictional.