When Gene returns to campus after fifteen years, he marvels at the fact that the tree, which is a central site of his boyhood trauma, looks so much like every other tree. The tree looms in his memory. Throughout his time at the Devon School, Gene’s perception of the tree shifts. At first, the tree is a challenge. Jumping from it is a way to play at adulthood. The second time that Gene and Finny jump from the tree, Gene nearly falls but Finny catches him. Each time he jumps, Gene feels the acute danger, resenting Finny for continuing to subject him to something that will likely become routine during his senior year. After Finny’s accident, Gene begins to see sports as a rehearsal for war. Although jumping from a tree into a river calls up images of summer boyhood fun, the act is also ultimately a rehearsal for war.

Even the name of the club centered around the tree, “The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session” (25), jokes about the potential seriousness of the danger that the tree represents. Jumping out of the tree is a form of playacting suicide and death. But the tree becomes a symbol of danger when Finny falls to the ground.