Summary And Analysis

Chapter 1 Summary

The first chapter of the novel starts from the perspective of Gene, the narrator. Gene visits the Devon School in New England, the school he had studied in during the same time as World War II. As Gene observes his former school, he considers the similarity of the current school with the one in his memory as something that has been preserved by varnish, durable against the tide of time. But quite unlike the physical endurance of the school, Gene realizes how his feelings toward the school are quite distinct from how he remembered them to be. He also realizes that his experience of the Devon School was as if the school did not exist prior to his joining, and likewise did not exist after his departure. Gene also realizes that he functioned with an existing undertone of fear during his formative years in school, not because he could identify that existence of fear during that time, but because of its absence now when he visits the school after all these years. Whether the somber feeling was because of World War II or because of his personal experience with people in the school is not explained by the narrator at this point. Gene does recognize that whatever sense of foreboding he had during his life at school no longer existed or held him captive. He felt free from that sense of heaviness his memory seemed to remind him of. This interaction with his memory prompts him to visit two locations at and near the school that he considered to be the site of the deepest and most impactful of all his memories during his time at the Devon School.

He first walks across the campus to visit a set of marble stairs in the First Academy Building, a building that weighs quite heavy in his memory. He notices that despite all the years that the staircase has been put to use and the number of footfalls it has received over the years, there was barely any more wearing in indentations than from when he was still a teenager. His realization that the marble staircase is durable and strong shakes him for a moment, for this “crucial fact” was not something he had considered before. He wonders about how despite the stairs being quite unchanged for the most part, they feel quite different now compared to how they did when he climbed those very steps several times during his time at school. He attributes this sense of difference not to the change in the marble staircase, but to himself — how his legs grew longer and he was taller, and how he does not feel small anymore in comparison to the stairs.

For his second destination, Gene walks toward the Devon River. After a muddy journey that hurts his shoes, he finally reaches the bank of the river and looks around for a tree from his memory. After realizing that the trees along the bank looked no different from each other, he is stunned for a moment as he tries to reconcile the reality before him with his memory. The tree in his memory was huge, tall and quite distinct from all other trees in the vicinity — a behemoth among its peers in the vicinity. He soon finds the tree he sought, but not because of its size as he had assumed earlier. There are two factors that make his target tree distinct from all the other trees — the first being the certain marks on the bark of the tree, and the second being the branch that extended out over the flowing river, something the other trees along the bank there did not possess. Gene realizes that not only does the tree seem to have shrunk in size, but he has become much bigger than the last time he visited the tree, thus making the tree seem twice as small and insignificant. Finding the tree, and finding it smaller than he thought it was, makes Gene feel grateful. He is reminded of an old French saying that translates to “The more things remain the same, the more they change after all.” Gene ponders over the inevitability of time and its effects on things and people, the unstoppable change of everything, even things like love and death. This process makes Gene himself feel changed. Ending his wandering thoughts, he returns to the campus to take shelter from the rain while also retreating into his shelter of memories.

The narrative now moves back in time to 1942, when Gene was still a young boy attending the Devon School. The tree goes back to looking bigger and more imposing, and the dare to jump off of its branch into the river seems downright terrifying. The dare was given by Gene’s roommate and friend Phineas, or Finny. Gene was not alone there with Finny. The ritual of jumping off of the tree and into the river was devised by the school as a regime for the seniors at Devon. With World War II being a looming presence in everyone’s lives, value was added to this ritual of testing the physical fitness of students who were only a year older than Gene and Finny, before they graduated and then departed for war. Claiming that jumping off the tree and into the river was a form of contributing to the war efforts, for both Gene and Finny were a year too young to join the war, Finny nudges the other boys around him to take the jump. Gene was not the only one present at the time of Finny’s challenge. They were also in the company of Elwin “Leper” Lepellier, Chet Douglass, and Bobby Zane. Seeing as how none of the boys were daring enough to go through with the ritual, Finny climbs up the tree to show the boys how it is done. Finny jumps into the river and swims back. He picks Gene to go next, who hesitates to jump off. Goaded by Finny, Gene musters enough courage to ignore every part of him that tells him to not take the jump and agrees to emulate Finny in the ritual. As he stands on the tree, Gene sees that he would have to jump enough to clear the bank to reach the river. As he stands there in hesitation, Finny goads Gene once again, saying that Gene would not have the luxury of time to contemplate his jump when he joins the war and his ship is being attacked by the enemies’ torpedoes. The goading works. Gene flings himself into the river, and when he surfaces, Leper compliments him on his jump, saying it looked better than even Finny’s. Finny shuts Leper down by asking him to reserve his judgements for until after he has done the jump himself. Leper, Chet and Bobby Do not fall for Finny’s goading and refuse to do the jump. Finny looks at Gene, the only one to do the jump with him, and says it is “just you and me.”

On their way back to the campus from the river, Finny tells Gene that he performed admirably, albeit only after being shamed into doing the jump. Finny calls out Gene’s false sense of bravery and his proclivity toward following rules. Finny says that is Gene’s problem, that he would not do something without being pressured or shamed into doing it. Gene denies Finny’s observations, although knowing them to be true deep within, and walks faster as if to get away from Finny, but also stating that they would be late for dinner as the bell for dinner sounds. Finding Gene’s sense of propriety funny, Finny trips him and gets into a wrestling match on the ground. Gene realizes that Finny was right in that his need to follow certain rules made no sense, and that there are certain aspects in life that operate outside the boundaries of rules. The realization makes Gene get more competitive, and he wrestles Finny back until well after dinner time. Understanding that they were too late for dinner now, they skip the meal and go back to their dorms so that they can do their homework and get some sleep.

Chapter 1 Analysis

In the beginning of the first chapter of the novel, John Knowles ensures two tasks are met. The first task is the introduction of the main character or protagonist that also serves as the narrator of the story. Once Gene, the narrator, is brought presented to the readers, Knowles sets out to complete the second task, which is to construct the theme or atmosphere around the story that Gene is going to narrate, which are school life at Devon as a teenager and World War II. The war is given the attribute of being almost omnipresent, with Knowles indicating how the memory of Gene when he was at school is consistently tainted by the harrowing feeling of existing war and impending dispatch, and possibly death.

Gene’s return to Devon is a return to a very specific point in his life, and despite the minimal changes to the physical structures, there is a marked difference between the memory of the feeling when Gene was a teenager and when he is visiting the school now. While the impact of the atmosphere of war is the big picture, Gene also seems to obsess over two particular places within the school — the marble stairs and the tree. This indicates that something significant or life-changing must have happened in relation to these two places within the school during his time as a student at Devon. Gene visiting the set of marble stairs is followed by his observation that the stairs are durable and hard, which would be a very curious observation to make, the implications of which are not explained by Gene or Knowles at this point. Also, his memory of the feeling that the marble stairs gave him is quite different from his current feeling, which not only indicates the absence of the stifling atmosphere that had followed his throughout his time as a student at Devon, but also attributes to his own personal and physical growth. That which seems unchanged changes most when everything else around it or everything that engages with it changes. Gene’s realizations are an indication that he is no longer the same person he was before, and just like how his perspective of the stairs has changed, so has his perspectives of things like the Devon school and World War II.

Gene also indicates that his arrival at the school now after all these years is a process of accepting and coming to terms with what had happened all those years ago. It all seems to be a process of coming to terms with himself, with the Gene of the past. New perspectives on physical things in the past such as the school and the set of marble stairs is also a gateway to new perspectives on himself and his own memories. This is also a process of bridging together the Gene of the past and the present Gene.

Gene then moves onto the tree, another physical entity that works as a scale to measure how much the current Gene has grown or changed from the Gene of the past. The tree of his memory not only seems to have shrunk, but it does not feel as imposing as he remembered. Coming to terms with this is also a process of coming to terms with the fact that what he thought were very imposing and dominating memories and events in his life in the past may not be as big as they seemed.

Knowles does not explain clearly why Gene has come back to Devon. One can only assume that Gene’s first course of action being the visitation of the most impactful places in his life is indicative of him going on a journey of introspection, or revisitation, of bringing current perspective to events of the past, and of moving on. To explain what exactly those aspects entail, Knowles takes the readers back to the past, back to the very same tree that Gene just visited. The tree that the current Gene considered small becomes bigger and more imposing, a wonderful use of juxtaposition where the growth of the size into a bigger size is actually indicative of time moving backwards and not forward.

The use of juxtaposition continues in another facet, where the somber tone of the novel transitions to a more joyful, playful and happier tone, even though the year of the past is 1942 — a time of war. Gene is by the tree with Finny and three other boys and is dared by Finny to take the jump into the river. The act is seen as playful, but has macabre undertones, for this seemingly coming of age ritual is also a regimen to qualify seniors before they are sent off to the war. Finny does the task with flair, and is shown as not only a daredevil, but also an instigator. He knows that shaming and goading Gene can work, and he uses it to get Gene to jump. Gene, despite the deep fear, takes the jump as an indication that he is willing to compete with Finny and will not take a back seat to his roommate and friend. Finny, on the other hand, seemed to use this ritual as an exam to qualify people as a friend, and Gene was the only one to pass., for the other three boys refused to do the jump. Finny instantly seemed to take Gene into his wing, and despite his teasing about Gene’s false courage, he also says that it is just the two of them now. To Finny, in that school, it was him and Gene against the world, and Gene, although needing goading, will take a dangerous plunge for him.

This section does not just throw light on the initial character of Finny. It also exposes the Gene of the past to the readers. Gene is shown as someone that follows rules, does not like breaking them, can be shamed into showing courage, is competitive (which also stands true about Finny, as seen when Leper praises Gene’s jump as being better than Finny’s), and does not want to be outdone by Finny. At the same time, he also cares about Finny a lot and he does not want to refuse Finny’s challenges. He holds his fears in and does something unwillingly just to please Finny. The first chapter also shows how from very early on, Finny can be very influential on Gene, a power that neither seemed to acknowledge in this chapter.

This section also shows the impact of war on innocent kids. The kids thought that jumping off the tree and into the river would help the war efforts in Europe, and Finny joked about Gene not having the time to contemplate jumping when attacked by torpedoes — both instances where war and violence has not only colored their games and jokes, but their language and motivations behind their playful acts have taken a shift toward war.