Black Hole
Chase himself chooses the astronomical phenomenon of the Black Hole to symbolize his state of amnesia. He compares all the memories which he has lost to the effect of all matter being sucked into a Black Hole. It is an appropriately imperfect symbol, however, reflecting Chase’s limited intelligence. While he asserts that what has been sucked into his Black Hole can’t get out compares scientifically to the inability of matter to escape the forces which pull it, Chase’s action reality is that some parts of his memory have already escaped (that even knows what a Black Hole is, for instance) and others are constantly working their way out as the story continues.
Teddy Bear
The very first of those memories revealed to be trying to escape Chase’s Black Hole of amnesia, for instance, is one that begins only as a very vague image of a little girl dressed in blue surrounded by a field of green. The forces of gravity within Chase’s mind proves itself incapable of keeping this memory from levitating up into his consciousness in fully detailed bloom that explains all its ambiguity in a way that make him fully cognizant at last of the genuinely hateful person used to be. The object of significance in this revelation, a Teddy Bear, becomes the symbolic centerpiece to the post-coma Chase of just exactly what it was about the pre-coma Chase that everybody either hates, fears, or avoids.
Piano Explosion
While the Teddy Bear is Chase’s symbol of the kind of person he used to be, for the reader that status belongs to the piano being played by Joel which Chase and his toadies rig with cherry bombs. Although it is never in doubt that Chase is the ultimate bully within this context (which, it must be admitted, is rather tame in comparison to certain real life situations involving extreme bully brutality), it is not really until the piano explosion is finally revealed in all its detail that the reader fully grasps the depths of depravity to which Chase has gone and to which it seems likely he could potentially sink.
Medal of Honor
Mr. Solway is awarded the highest honor for military service in the country but retains absolutely no memory of the acts which brought him the Medial of Honor. That he is a war hero is not a topic for debate for anyone but Solway himself (and, of course, Chase’s intellectually-challenged toadies.) The Medal of Honor in this way becomes a symbol of how one’s actions define their character rather than their own persistent self-estimation of themselves.
Shoshanna
Shoshanna Weber is portrayed from the get-go as the biggest critic of Chase Ambrose, the person least likely to believe he has changed, and the student with the greatest desire to extract a little retribution justice, sometimes call revenge. Over the course of the novel, her feelings toward Chase become a rollercoaster ride in which she first moves closer toward believing and forgiving him, then feels betrayed and moves further away from trusting him and then shifts direction again. She becomes the symbol of the complexity of doubt, resistance, and hope which lies within that seemingly simple pearl of wisdom suggesting that “everybody deserves a second chance.”
