Reflection

“In the deep, tacit way in which feeling becomes stronger than thought, I had always felt that the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it, it was vibrantly real while I was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day I left.”

This sentence reflects from Gene’s time as a man back to the childhood spent at Devon. His memory still has a tremendous hold on him, as evidenced by his ability to recall the events of fifteen years with such ease. He remembers the past with ease, and yet Gene admits that the school is valid only to him, existing simply within memory fifteen years later.  The presence of memory, and its role over time, is a major theme of this book. When Gene ponders his thoughts on the past and on the lasting impact of the events he is describing, he only increases the importance of this theme within the novel.

“I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.”

“I didn’t entirely like this glossy new surface, because it made the school look like a museum, and that’s exactly what it was to me, and what I did not want it to be.”