Character Analysis: Summer At Devon

Summer at Devon is easygoing as teachers mellow out and the rule enforcement dwindles, such carefree behavior represents childhood; Devon’s winter session is ultimately more strict and level, emphasizing the mood in adulthood. As the sun shines bright, tension unravels and everyone at Devon loosens up including the teachers as Gene explains on page 23, “Now on these clear June days in New Hampshire they appeared to uncoil, they seemed to believe that we were with them about half of the time, and only spent the other half trying to makes fools of them.” The summer days are filled with happy-go-lucky antics that seem to come with no serious consequence; exactly how a young child would spend everyday of his life as a youthful boy. There is no

Summer was already ending and Gene gives one last description by saying, “From behind us the last long rays of light played across the campus, accenting every slight undulation of the land, emphasizing the separateness of each bush” (59). The simpleness of summer is about to abruptly end. Yet, summer and childhood must come to an end as some point. For Gene, it all ends when Phineas falls as described on page 60, “Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through the little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud.” All playfulness is lost when Finny’s body connects with the dirt beneath him; what follows is the cold onslaught of the winter session or adulthood. Gene, in order to make this transition must cope with the intense, disatisfying feelings of guilt for he was the one who set his friend off balance. Finny, the core of carefree behavior and summer, was put out, emphasizing the end of the session. As the winter session starts up the teachers were unhappy that Phineas was

Gene understands that Finny is unable to make a transition into adulthood when he says, “You’d get things so scrambled up nobody would know who to fight anymore. You’d make a mess, a terrible mess, Finny, out of the war” (191). Finny is unable to make an enemy out of anyone therefore preventing him from finding any real internal war to fight. Gene is already experiencing a mental and emotional battle from Finny’s fall allowing him to enter adulthood. Childhood can not thrive forever, adults cannot carry the careless characteristics of a small boy, and this is why Phineas can never made it to adulthood; he can never fully reveal an internal fight with true emotion behind it. Gene is shattered to the doctor say, “‘This is something I think boys of your generation are going to see a lot of,’ he said quietly, ‘and I will have to tell you about it now. Your friend is dead.’ He was incomprehensible” (193). Nevertheless, this marks the end of Gene’s war and grants him entrance into adulthood. Phineas’ death is the true mark that one can not be a child forever, they must find a fight inside their head that requires emotional and intellectual strength to become an