People as objects
This novel makes excellent use of symbolism by suggesting that to some people, other people are merely objects for one's use. That solipsistic, sociopathic point of view is what enabled human traffickers to commit a horrific act by separating Sigita's son from her and selling him on the black market. The black market is famous for including human bodies or part of human bodies as part of their wares, so the symbolism is a natural fit for solipsism. Because various characters in the book do not admit or acknowledge the unspeakable worth of a single human being, they don't mind participating in this evil against orphan and widow.
The evil couple
There is a couple who acts as antagonist and foil for the mother and son. Instead of thinking of their community or of children (important for any marriage, one might say), the couple only thinks about what they want to get out of their marriage. They are an anti-couple, demonstrating the opposite principles of the mother and son. They are enticed by money and the promise of pleasure into committing morally corrupted actions against an innocent boy, even committing a murder in the name of money. Not the kind of couple one would want for neighbors.
The reunion of mother and son
The harmonious reunion of an innocent boy to his bereaved mother is a motif that belongs to perhaps the most important symbology of the Western world. In alchemy, this principle is often called the conjunctio, the reunion of seemingly opposite principles into one harmonious idea. That synthesis occurs when the boy, who represents masculinity, the potential for future action, and the hope of future justice, is reunited to the love of his mother who, although older and less likely to save the world, for instance, is still able to give the boy a chance at a healthy upbringing which will help him. That complementary system is quite literally a natural symbol for life because it is they method by which life perpetuates itself, through generation.
Death as a pursuer
If the survival of the son is a natural symbol for life, then Karin's untimely death makes Jucas (whose name is almost Judas) into a fitting symbol for human death. The symbolism works well if one forgets Jucas's human motivations; he is motivated by money of course. By forgetting his motivation, one places one's imagination into the point of view of the mother who cannot fathom why anyone should want to hurt her family. Then, by the time she has survived with her son, the remaining knowledge gained through that experience is her new awareness of death. In the context of the narrative, death fear is narrowed into a specific kind of fear—a mother's private horror for the survival of her son.
The evil patriarch
In the whole system of the book's action, there is one symbolic character who can be said to have engineered all the evil and death in the book for his own benefit. That is the corrupted patriarch, the wealth businessman Jan Marquat who inadvertently kills his own employee in his attempt to buy a child on the black market instead of properly mourning his son. One of the issues here is that the patriarch replaces the son like property, not a mark of empathy. Since he does not view his own family and employees as valuable and irreplaceable, his willingness to do evil comes with a sense of entitlement derived from his privilege of monetary and political power.
