The Maple Is Their Leader
Trees are a major symbol in the narrative and also one of those which is directly implicated by the author. Trees provide shelter and food as well as many other necessities and desires. Not to mention being necessary for the existence of all life on earth. And yet is through their standing as, well, simply always standing and being there that the symbolism lies:
“Many peoples of the world recognize a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength.”
Pecans
A long, detailed examination of the propagation of pecan trees leads to the symbolism of this particular tree as it stands apart from the collective unit. It is a particular species with a particular symbolism based upon its propagation. Pecans trees have “learned” to stick together, that there is great strength in unity and danger in the pursuit of individualized self-interest. Pecan trees thus represent the indigenous tribal spirit of working collaboratively toward a common goal.
Skywoman
Essentially, Skywoman is the Potawatomi tribal equivalent of the figure of Eve from the Christian bible. Major differences exist in their origin story, of course, but taken together they are both symbolic figures of the same basic concept: the mother of us all.
Strawberries
Unlike Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny for whom strawberries is the symbolic representation of all his psychotic paranoia, the tasty red berries here become a symbol of all the goodness life has to offer. Her recollection of eating strawberries growing wild in summer fields when she was a child is infused with a visceral philosophical contemplation of existence. Even today when she eats strawberries, she filled not just physically by a satiation of hunger, but almost spiritually with renewed feelings of worth and gratitude. Strawberries have become the defining symbols of one of the book’s most persistent thematic pursuits: the gratitude we should all feel toward the earth for the bounty it supplies daily.
Bean, Beans: The Symbolic Fruit
An unlikely symbol for much of anything, beans attain a symbolic status in a moment of epiphany that arguably endows them with a greater significance than almost anything else. It is while picking that the thunderbolt of recognition hits the author: beans are proof that earth loves us in return. But the symbolism goes even deeper than that and is delineated in the section titled “Epiphany in the Beans” in which beans—beans!—become a symbolic fruit, the happier you become the longer your pursuit:
“It came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness.”
