Real life for Americans
Warren depicts a normal life—her own. She uses imagery for a strategic purpose. The imagery that defines her public person is not the same imagery that defines her life, so she writes this memoir at least in part to correct a misunderstanding. She says she doesn't come from wealth or privilege. She remembers times when her parents were struggling to survive, without a way to make ends meet. The middle class is a place that is hard to survive, and she explains through her own personal memory that she understands that fact.
Banks and big businesses
Part of the problem is plain even in Warren's own childhood. It was the bank who was all-too-happy to come along and take the car away from the family, and they would have taken the house away too. The bank was not intending to help the family, and when her father suffered a heart attack, the banks were cruel and exploitative, claims Warren. Her personal experience shapes this imagery, but also her experience in politics, where she has seen corruption unfolding at the expense of the middle class.
Law and fairness
To Warren, law seemed like an obvious choice, because she was passionate about fairness and justice. Soon, she discovered that the connection between law and order is a tenuous one that is fragile and easily thrown out of balance. She discovers that people join politics for a number of reasons, not all of them good or moral. Therefore, law goes from being a symbol for justice to being an imagery through which she pursues justice.
Injustice and bribery
The imagery of bribery and injustice are explained through real life examples. These are concrete depictions of a dynamic which is at the heart of political corruption. The dynamic is that businesses with the most money are the most likely to afford bribing political people, and the legal nature of those bribes is decided by the people who receive the bribes, so once a culture of corruption is established, it becomes nearly impossible to stop.
