American imagery
The imagery that most clearly defines the book is the imagery of America which has as its concrete aspects the daily life of Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant and refugee who now lives as an adjusted member of his community. His point of view lends an unusual objectivity and clarity to the American culture that the book captures so that the concrete imagery which seems so normal to American citizens is associated with absurdity and chaos, because that is what a foreigner's experience is like abroad.
Nostalgia and Ethiopia
It was not because he longed to live in America that Stephanos left Ethiopia, but because of political unrest in his country which drove him out of his homelands. When he allows nostalgia to infect the prose, the imagery transforms into meditations on time and the past. What is home to Stephanos? Home is a concept that has died and must be mourned; the true home for his being is in an Ethiopia which does not exist anymore because of political turmoil. Nostalgia is a complicating imagery which makes him calculate his attachments.
Portraits of hope
There are portraits of hope that encourage Stephanos from his community. For instance, he finds deep peace when he meets Naomi, a new local and a bi-racial 11-year-old whose beautiful complexion is a living witness to a hopeful future. As a young person, she inspires hope for a good future in Stephanos who often feels anhedonic and detached. Her mother, Judith, is a pillar of hope as well because she fearlessly moves into a black neighborhood, knowing what those challenges might look like.
Ennui and dissociation
The tone of the novel is sometimes defined by ennui or dissociation. Ennui is the French word for boredom, but it has been used through absurdist and existentialist philosophy to mean a kind of boredom with life itself. That existential ennui defines this melancholy refugee, as he is obligated to survive through toil which he has no interest in. He is not looking forward to anything, nor does he have anywhere he'd rather go; the life he loved is gone forever, and so we see through the imagery of his prose that he feels dissociated.
