the beginning..

"Plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change."

This saying means "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
In chapter 1, Gene goes back to the school he attended in his youth to find that many things, like the Marble Stairs, stayed the way they were when he was younger. While they remained the same physically, the weren't the same to gene. The steps looked the same and had little wear considering the many years that they had been there. The tree where he had spent much of his youth was still hanging over the river like it used to, with the same marks on its trunk but it doesn't seem as big as it used to. Everything was the same, but why didn't it feel the same to gene?

I think Gene came back to Devon with hope that things would have changed over the 15 years. He might have wanted to have proof that time changes things and that it changed him as well. When he went back to Devon and was surprised by how much it looked the same, he might have felt that he hadn't changed either, which would have made him somewhat unhappy since he was never quite content with who he was, especially without Finny..



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