Mr. Potter
Mr. Potter is identified as a man whose job is making sure every T is crossed and I is dotted. He works in a factory, but not on an assembly line, instead illustrated literally crossing and dotting on giants reams of paper continuously rolling through on giant spools. The image situates him perfectly as a symbol for all those unlucky enough to be stuck working in a bureaucracy.
Professor de Breeze
The Professor has spent three decades trying to get Irish ducks to learn how to read Jivvanese. The symbolism here is directed toward all those who wasted lives not learning that some things are just simply impossible. They really and truly cannot be done.
The Clothes Hanger
The final image of something that the boy is told to be grateful he’s not is a single clothes hanger dangling from a line over a desolate landscape. The hanger symbolizes all those people who have been forgotten by those who once cared.
Harry Haddow
Harry is illustrated as one fuzzy haired kid standing among a group of similarly dressed—and similar looking—individuals facing toward the sun so that they can long shadows. Harry Haddow, however, does not cast a shadow. Harry places the blame for this condition, thinking that there must clearly be “something wrong with Gizz.” Harry’s situation is profoundly symbolic, making a statement about individualism and peer pressure.
Herbie Hart
Herbie Hart is an example of being unlucky because he has took apart his Throm-dim-bu-lator and can’t get it back together. Try as he might, he’ll be able to figure out which part fits into which part. The symbolism is metaphorical rather than literal. It’s not about taking things apart and not knowing how to put them back together again, but rather overanalyzing the abstract to the point that it can no longer be responded to emotionally as it was before the mystery was removed.
