High school
Going to high school is a change of imagery that signals other important changes in one's life as well. This imagery is compounded for Phyllisia by the fact that she has just moved from the West Indies, so that the imagery of high school is also her first experience of her new home. The high school is an imagery pointing therefore to transfer, because she is leaving her childhood to become an adult, but she must pass through these four years to transition into that new identity.
Popularity and power
In high school, Phyllisia knows that popularity is something more important than what it seems on the surface. She longs to be powerful, and to have the attention and approval she feels she deserves. Her desire for power brings her to several injustices; for instance, she longs for approval over her intelligence, but the culture doesn't really care about intelligence, especially not her father who has strict opinions about gender. She realizes that in her school, power is awarded to girls with thin figures and pretty faces, and this new awareness brings her to a sense of injustice.
Freedom as a bad thing
Although Phyllisia has the makings of a powerful rebel, she doesn't want to be free from her father. She wants to be loved by her father, but instead, the story of her life continues to bring her out of the confines of innocence. She is like a caged animal being loosed into its natural habitat. The book seems to say, "Come on! Be an adult now!" but Phyllisia is not excited to be independent. When her mother dies, that is a major sign; the imagery of freedom is thrust upon her with the religious force of death; she is "condemned to be free," to quote an important existentialist philosopher, Sartre.
Death and tragedy
The imagery of death and tragedy are frequent occurrences in the plot, but she is privileged; she mostly watches in horror as life lays Edith out. Edith isn't spared from anything, and although she is poor, Phyllisia participates in Edith's horror by parading her around the wealthy life they lead in the Cathy residence. The imagery is a depiction of fortune and fate, because Phyllisia realizes that her privilege is only so effective; when her mother dies for instance, that is a pretty clear indication that fate is no respecter of her desires.
