Jim's Height
At least twice we see Jim positioned higher than his parents in the frame. The first time is in the police station when Jim stands on the shoeshine chair, appearing like a giant compared to his parents on the floor next to him. We also see similar framing when Jim is telling his parents the truth about Buzz dying in the 'chickie run' as he looms above them on the stairs. This repeated image suggests that Jim is not only flouting the authority of his parents, but is also perhaps occupying the moral "high ground" that he accuses his parents of abandoning.
Jim's Father's Apron
After the knife-fight, Jim arrives home to see his father in his mother's apron, cleaning up a tray of food and dishes that he has spilled on the floor. His father is literally on his hands and knees, wearing an apron. Frank later wears the apron while attempting to give advice to Jim before he sets out to meet Buzz and the gang at the bluff. The image of the apron works as a symbol to express Frank's feminization and powerlessness in the household, both in relation to Jim's mother and to Jim himself, which helps explain why Jim disgustedly tugs at the apron.
Jim's Knife
Buzz challenges Jim to a knife fight at the planetarium and eve gives him Jim a knife, but Jim does not pick it up at first. Buzz and the gang encroach on Jim until he is backed into a corner and has nowhere else to go. When Buzz calls Jim a chicken, Jim switches the blade out, indicating the fact that the knife symbolizes the violent potential of competition and aggression between adolescent men, as well as the fact that the insult "chicken" is the trigger motivating this violence. The knife is also a phallic symbol that suggests the underlying homoerotic energy in Jim and Buzz's knife fight.
Triangles
Rebel Without A Cause often stages scenes that unfold in relation to three major characters, and this triangular structure often impacts the film's imagery. The opening police station sequence, for instance, is composed of three interviews with Judy, Plato, and Jim, in that order. Ray builds anticipation during the knife fight scene by lingering on the way in which Judy mediates the rivalry between Jim and Buzz, editing the scene to stress these three characters as the main "love triangle" of the film. The way Jim is pinned on the stairwell between his mother and father in the big domestic argument scene indicates the way in which Jim feels emotionally caught and trapped within his family structure. Finally, Jim, Judy, and Plato form a tripartite family unit in the abandoned mansion sequence, until tragedy cuts their fantasy life together short.
