1. Essential Element | Quote | Sentences | Symbolism | “This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but that they are…shrunken by age.” Ch. 1, Pg. 14 | The tree is symbolized to represent something grown up from. The tree is the past, and it was so much more meaningful before rather than now. The change in importance is due to Gene thinking and reliving it constantly over time. | Symbolism | “Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence.” Ch. 1, Pg. 14 | You receive so much information and deep emotions from this one quote. The author tells us that
Gene is going to take over this conflict and be better than his friends. |

6. Essential Element | Quote | Sentences | Symbolism | “The traditions had been broken, the standards let down, all rules forgotten.” Pg. 66 | Devon was falling apart. This problem is symbolic to the relationship of Gene and Finny ever since the tragedy of Finny. Now everything around them was crumbling. | Conflict | “I didn't trust myself in [sports], and I didn't trust anyone else. It was as though...boxers were in combat to the death, as though even a tennis ball might turn into a bullet. This didn't seem completely crazy imagination in 1942, when jumping out of trees stood for abandoning a torpedoed ship. Later, in the school swimming pool, we were given the second stage in that rehearsal: after you hit the water you made big splashes with your hands, to scatter the flaming oil which would be on the surface.” Pg. 76 | We now understand how subordinate Gene is to sports. Now he’s so full of guilt about taking sports away from Finny, and he could never be as good as he was. Also, he doesn’t have Finny with him to accomplish these sports. | Transformation | “‘Listen, pal, if I can’t play sports, you’re going to play them for me,’ and I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas.” Pg. 78 | Instead of being the athlete, Finny will stick side by side with Gene and