The criminal king
Jack is involved in an allegory of consciousness. The element of consciousness is present because the most important aspect of his character is not his slavery to a pirate ship; it is his syphilitic blackout. For three years, he has been able to function, but the insanity caused by his syphilis infection has caused him to be catatonic without the use of his memory. He "awakens" at the novel's outset and then goes on to conquer the world, going from petty criminal slave to absolute power in his own kingdom.
The femme fatale duchess
Jack does everything for this romantic attachment he feels to his anima, a femme fatale named Eliza who is the protagonist in the second book of the novel. Eliza is a symbol in Jack's narrative because Jack was given the impression that they were in true love, but when Eliza was stolen away from Jack by a French oligarch, she gave up on him and moved on for her own purposes. She does not share Jack's attachment, but she does symbolize his tantric rise to power. He dominates the world using an injustice as fuel that secretly doesn't even apply—Eliza does not feel the same way.
The pirate queen as Lady Fortuna
Another symbolic female character is present in Jack's story. This woman is not the object of his enamoration. Instead, she serves a metaphysical role as an archetypal force for change. Basically, she is like Lady Fortuna who comes along at seemingly-random intervals to catalyze intense changes in fate. She comes one day to take all the fortune away from the pirates. Then, years later, she comes back to make Jack personally rich. She is a symbol for the karmic principles of fate and the maximization of one's potential, either for good for for bad.
The alchemist motif
There is a lovely motif in the novel for those people who know a little bit about European alchemy and witchcraft. The pirates are always around the underbelly of culture, wherever they go, and they often encounter insightful prophets and mystics who are just witchy enough to live in the underbelly too. An alchemist friend helps Jack face an unfortunate truth about his fate and his love for Eliza. Jack gives his ship an alchemical witch's name: Minerva. The motif is deeply ingrained in the novel. Important alchemists appear as characters, and Jack goes on a subplot to obtain quicksilver.
Newton's struggle
This book does not seem to be about Isaac Newton until suddenly, it is about Isaac Newton. The archetypal alchemist and philosopher-genius-extraordinaire is in a season of duress. He is struggling to articulate an instinctual philosophy that is incredibly sophisticated and complicated. His friends think he is insane because he is wading through incredibly complicated systems of thought to approach a universal theory of reality that would unite the world's various economies and systems into one. They don't believe such an elegant explanation is present in reality. The reader knows that Newton's dilemma is a symbol for hope, because he actually does find his answer, along with Leibniz, Eliza's good friend. History proved Newton right: He eventually discovered Calculus, on the same day as Leibniz, as the story goes.
