For Quackenbush had been systematically disliked since he first set foot in Devon, with careless, disinterested insults coming at him from the beginning, voting for and applauding the class leaders through years of attaining nothing he wanted for himself. I even sympathized with his trembling, goaded egotism he could no longer contain, the furious arrogance which sprang out now at the mere hint of opposition from someone he had at last found whom he could consider inferior to himself.
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Cliff Quackenbush is an irritable and condescending Devon crew team manager. Disliked by most Devon students, Cliff mistreats anyone who he has power over. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Chapter 6. When he reaches the Crew House, Cliff Quackenbush , the crew manager, admonishes him for being late.
Once again, Gene instinctively identifies with Finny, transforming his guilt into shared pain. The result of the fight between Gene and Quackenbush — a fall into the salty Naguamsett — represents a dirty dunking that contrasts sharply with the cleansing baptism of the Devon.
While the earlier jump from the tree into the Devon opens Gene's eyes to a fresh vision of the world, this fall into the Naguamsett awakens him to a keener sense of his own guilt. Later, in the next chapter, Gene comes to accept his dunking as another kind of "baptism. Gene's fall into the river also gains in moral significance when Mr. Ludsbury confronts him on the way to the dormitory.
Gene's excuse — tellingly, "I slipped" — becomes the basis for Mr. Ludsbury's long and caustic sermon on the boys' disobedience during the Summer Session. Gene has "slipped" from Devon traditions and standards, according to the master, but he has also slipped morally from friendship through his own jealous spite. Dirty with salt and slime here, Gene appears as a fallen, filthy friend, unworthy of Finny's trust and regard.
This image of Gene contrasts sharply with the warmth and trust evident in Finny's unexpected phone call. The boys' friendship seems renewed on both sides — passively, on Gene's part, because he has not got a new roommate; and actively, on Finny's part, through his assertion of faith in Gene after their argument in Boston. But the moment of unity quickly yields to a study in contrasts and the reassertion of Finny's influence over Gene when the conversation turns to sports.
As Finny tells Gene: "Listen, pal, if I can't play sports, you're going to play them for me. This command represents both a challenge and a relief to Gene.
Upon hearing Finny's wish, Gene becomes virtually one with the friend he has both idealized and destroyed. And it is in this moment that a sense of freedom suddenly sweeps over Gene, when he thinks about what his secret purpose must have been in jouncing the limb — "to become a part of Phineas. Here, a specialized term from World War II meaning "for as long as the war continues.
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