Grandmother as an image of Spain.
When Andrea visits her family's home, she finds her own grandmother, stricken by grief and old age, unable to tend to her own cleanliness or to the cleanliness of the home. In this, we see an image of Spain, with all its personality and culture decimated by war, changed by philosophical paradigm shifts. The grandmother is basically waiting to die, and that's the precarious position that the author might have wondered for Spain in light of the promises of new wars just around the corner and brutal wars just behind them.
Roman as a reflection of the Francoist government.
Roman is a musician, an artist. Naturally, this poetic person would be an enemy of a dictatorship, especially the Francoist regime. In the novel though, he involves himself in illegal, or maybe even anti-legal activities, so when he commits suicide, there is a sense in which he brought his fate upon himself, but that doesn't mean that his story is not a perfect illustration of the brutality of the regime. He would rather die than to find out what the Francoist regime is doing to its prisoners. Therefore, he represents the public's distaste for the government during that time.
The home as a metaphor for social decay.
The chaos of the mess is likely a reference to the social disarray of Spain during the time. The uncleaned messes aren't really on anyone's radar when Andrea shows up, which might be a reference to the emotions of post-war Spain. "Look at all these messes; is anyone going to even try to clean them up?"
Leaving Barcelona as a metaphor for the abandonment of the past.
Barcelona is where Andrea's family is. In the Spanish world, that means that it's her homeland. To abandon it is to become no one again, to reestablish a new life with a new sense of self. But Andrea doesn't go backwards in time. She just moves to Madrid, still aware of her orphanhood, still aware of the decay of her beloved family. This represents the unwilling, bitter transition into a dark, unknown future, instead of a miserable, torturous existence.
Education as an image of hope and future promise.
When Andrea does go to Madrid, Ena's father makes mention of potential opportunities for continued education and for a career. That means that Andrea will likely keep her status as a member of the upper class, but the real treat is that this time, the education represents a future. Now she's off of the government's support, living in a family that can support her again. She's a little like an adopted child in this way, and the promise of future joy is present in the novel through the promise of education.
