Chickens and Eagle allegory
In the Chicken and Eagles chapter, Tara reveals to Taylor a story about chickens and eagle that Dr. Hatch told the kids. The story is about an eagle being brought into a family of chickens and growing up behaving like a chicken. After a couple attempts by the farmer eagle begins to fly and stops behaving like a chicken. Dr. Hatch told the Glow kids this allegory for their lives: they are all eagles who were taught to live a measly life of chickens, but he is the one who will change that. They have to rise above chickens and become eagles. This is just another one of Hatch's manipulation stories to be able to control the kids with the excuse of it being for their benefit.
Watch of Michael's father
On Michael's birthday, Michael's mother gives him a watch that belonged to his father. The watch is Michael's reminder of his family and where he came from. At the end the watch survived the fight just like Michael did and it is a symbol of that and of his determination to fight back.
Motif of confinement
All throughout the novel there is a prevailing motif of confinement. At the start of the novel, Michael is confined to detention because he was bullied. Later Taylor gets kidnapped and tied up in a dark van and when she arrives at Elgen Academy she is confined to a cell. Most of the kids at the Elgen Academy are confined to rooms without the indoor handle so that they can't leave when they want. The novel's subtitle is Prisoner of Cell 25 and Michael is that prisoner and Cell 25 is a terror cell with no light.
