There are several symbols in the novel. I will list a few.
I cannot also address imagery. This needs to be submitted as a separate
posting.
The first symbol is "the road." Like The
Wizard of Oz, the road is the beginning of the journey home, even though one
may not be sure where or what home will be at the journey's end. The families are using
the roads to leave the old and find something new and more promising. Tom travels the
road to find his home again. The road, while connecting two destinations, can also be a
dangerous place, even as it is today. The road provides connections and gives way to
hope in this novel.
Another symbol found in the novel is
bugs. Bugs are referred to several times. In terms of farming, bugs can cause great
damage to crops. Bugs in the past have been known for giving life and taking it away. In
the Bible, John the Baptist ate locusts and honey in the wilderness, but locusts were
also one of the Biblical plagues. At one point Tom kills a grasshopper with precision
and brutality. Perhaps this is symbolic of how the strong treat the weak, i.e.,
landowners and tenant farmers.
A third symbol is that of
the farm. When the tenant farmers leave the land, the machines take over, and the men
that work the land do not have the emotional connection to these farms that the families
did. Without the care of the families who have lived there, the houses fall to ruin. And
although the farmers try to fight this change, progress will not step aside. No thought
is given to the multiple forms of life that exist on a farm. Certainly today's farmers
are fighting the same battles to survive.
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