| 1) People are an always will be after their own agenda | When Gene pushes finny out of the tree, it is pure blind revenge and he does not even stop to think what he’s doing or what the consequences are. He merely does in that moment what he desires most and lets his selfishness control him. |
| 2) There will always be someone who’s nature tends to be careless and irresponsible | Finny, throughout the entire book, could ever care less about any of his responsibilities. He is much too busy jumping out of trees, breaking rules, and throwing winter carnivals. This leads to a lot of irreparable damage like a broken leg or the trust of a friend. |
| 3) People lie to impress and tend to care too much about people’s opinion of them. | Gene has built up a façade of his life history for the sake of his friend’s opinion of him. He does this by simply hanging up random pictures of big manors and things of this nature and never saying they’re his, just implying it by their presence. This show extreme conceit and immaturity which is only to be expected from the foolish boys at Devon. |