Leaving Play Behind Symbol
The daughter does not want to stay at home and play that day. She does not want to stay behind. This symbolizes her feelings that she is ready to leave childhood behind. The fact that her mother wants her to stay at home and play symbolizes that she is not yet ready for her daughter to become a young woman, and would prefer to keep her a child for a while longer.
Marching Symbol
The daughter sees the march as a symbol of hope for the future. She believes that it can change the way that things are, and she sees her participation as a symbol of her involvement in the adult world that she is so desperate to join.
Church Symbol
The mother suggests that her daughter goes to the church because the church symbolizes sanctuary and safety. Rather than seeing her daughter involved in a mass event where she cannot protect her,she would rather that she went to a place that symbolized protection itself.
Struggle for Racial Equality Motif
The march is referenced throughout the poem and the motif of the struggle for racial equality is a constant motif. Although there is no direct reference to the objectives of it, the daughter makes several references of wanting to make life better for people like her, and for her mother, and we also see the mother's growing lack of hope for anything to be changed by a march.
White Gloves and Shoes Symbol
While these accessories are her daughter's "Sunday Best" for church they also symbolize her innocence, and her loss. Although her mother never finds her daughter in the rubble of the church after the explosion, she finds a shoe and a glove, and these symbolize the lost innocence of her daughter as well as the death of her daughter and her own searing loss as a parent.
