The Unification Ceremony
The novel begins as Karen participates in a Unification Church Blessing Ceremony at a baseball stadium in New York, in which she is to marry a man she has never met. Her parents watch from the stands, and the scene is described from their perspective. Thousands gather on the floor below in suits and gowns. Karen's parents struggle to find her amongst the crowd and are forced to use binoculars. They also look at other relatives of marrying couples, and note that many of them appear worried and distracted. These intense and vivid imagery establishes several key themes that will continue throughout the novel, namely, the intensiveness of human devotion, and the power of pack mentalities.
Bill's Office
When Brita travels to Bill's house to take his picture, she is fascinated by his office. It is scattered with charts and papers, the walls are lined with pages and plans for his novel. She notices that some of the papers are aged and have been left up for years. An ashtray overflows on his desk. The state of Bill's office is symbolic of the character's emotional state. He is scattered and distraught, and is unable to make progress with his work. Instead, he works to continually distract himself and avoid doing work. Amongst other reasons, this is why he fled his home.
Warhol's Mao
The novel receives its namesake from a painting by Andy Warhol depicting Chairman Mao. Although not otherwise connected to the plot, Brita sees the painting at an exhibition in New York and is intrigued by the image. She ponders the nature of image-creation and the fact that "a few lines with a pencil and there he is." This image can be contrasted with that of Bill. Whereas Mao is seemingly everywhere, Bill is elusive and hidden. Still, they were both men who lived and left their mark on the world. When Bill decides to have his photo taken by Brita, he becomes another manufactured image like that of Mao. For this reason, Warhol's picture of Mao essentially frames DeLillo's philosophical approach to the image.
The Prison Cell
While the Swiss poet remains captured by the Maoist group, he dedicates a breadth of mental energy to describing the conditions of his prison cell. It is cramped, hot and humid. He lays on the ground in the narrow confines and eventually grows too weak to move. He wears a hood and can only estimate the size of his cell. Outside he hears the blast of rockets and bombs. Occasionally, he is visited by a young boy who feeds and tortures him. The imagery is incredibly bleak and hopeless, and serves to demonstrate the horrible, and personal, devastation caused by fanaticism and terrorism.
The World Trade Centre
From her apartment window, Brita looks out towards the World Trade Centres. She fixates on the towers and analyzes them in great detail. She images them talking to one another, and assigns one a male and the other a female gender. To her, the towers represent the move towards a capitalistic, corporate America that prioritizes profit over all else. This facet of the novel is imbued with particular importance given the attacks of 9/11 which felled both towers.
