“Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.” 

The narrative that Gene relates about his past is steeped in unrecognized fear. Gene is afraid of being labeled a coward, afraid of failure, and afraid of having a friend who might be better than him. For a high school student, the stakes of one’s ability to compete and maintain a positive reputation seem like life-or-death. Gene is terrified to jump out of the tree but risks his life in order to save face—even after he nearly falls and Finny has to catch him. But in the years after graduation, Gene has overcome that fear and his need to compete as a defense mechanism.

“Everything at Devon slowly changed and slowly harmonized with what had gone before.”

The Devon campus has developed over time, which means that it is a mixed bag of architectures and styles. Although the elements are not conceived together or made to match, the resulting campus somehow works aesthetically. This comments on the way change occurs over time. Gene recognizes that he has changed since his time at Devon. Although the story that he relates is a narrative of his coming-of-age, and therefore inherently one of change, becoming an adult and living as one has changed him further.