Family and psychology
In The Breaks, a family is perplexed by the mental decline of a beloved young man in the family. There is apparently no reason why he should be falling into feelings of hopelessness and anhedonia, but the novel is concerned with explaining precisely what those feelings stem from. The implied imagery is family and developmental psychology, because the only explanation for Peter's hopelessness is that in his childhood, he confused his father's belief in his abilities with a fear of failure. His father probably just miscommunicated his intentions, or perhaps he was emotionally frustrating to his son. In any case, the novel shows the way a child's imagination about their parents' opinions can easily create chronic mental health issues later in life.
Religious shame and sin
The novel also weaves into the portrait of invisible family crises a strand of religious implication. The patriarch of this Jewish family is literally a symbol for the religious authority of Judaism, because it is through a long series of ancestors that ethnic Jews are derived from the forefathers of the faith, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the prophets. By rejecting his father's religion, Peter successfully solves the dilemma about his father's approval. He disapproves of his father's blind obedience and belief in Judaism, and therefore frees himself of the feeling that he has to impress his father. In his psychology, this constitutes existential breakthrough because he stops claiming to believe in God.
Illegal activity
Peter begins making some very dubious decisions. He tries cocaine, a drug famous for causing addiction, and he decides he likes it. If he didn't enjoy it, why would it be addictive? Of course he likes it, because it improves his mental health in short bursts, but only through mania and escapism. However, the imagery is not purely negative; the novelist forgives his cocaine usage in a way by moving him into the comedy scene. The other major illegal imagery is the bomb threats, the court cases, and his conviction of guilt. To be sure, this legal imagery is part of his experience of moralism, because he is Jewish, and that religion literally introduced legal moralism.
Counter-culture imagery
The imagery of this novel is experienced from two points of view, more or less, because Peter moves from one scene to another scene. In the first scene, his cocaine usage and legal issues are a kind of horrible fate that is unimaginable and extreme. In the comedy scene, he is actually pretty tame and moral. Yes, he steals his professor's wife and gets in legal trouble and does drugs. But, then again, he is apparently sexy and cool to a certain kind of person, because he is accepted in a counter-cultural community in Manhattan. He is part of what Don DeLillo called "the Underworld" of New York.
