Hills (Motif)
Throughout the book, the characters conquer physical and metaphorical hills. The hill known as Daniel's Whine appears often throughout the book, and as Tom learns to climb some of the hills in Cogshill on his daily morning runs with Brendan, he also learns how to climb some of the harder social and emotional hills he's been facing ever since the accident.
The Black Tunnel (Symbol)
Tom’s symbol for lapsing into the depressive state of comparing how things were before the accident with how things are since is a “Black Tunnel.” What makes the symbol so powerful is that these naturally pessimistic and depressive episodes are not a conveyance that one can simply choose whether or not to enter. The Black Tunnel is clearly not a place Tom desires to enter, yet at times he is absolutely incapable of not doing so.
Rugby (Symbol)
Rugby is a multi-dimensional symbol in the story. It represents the high esteem in which the Brennan family is held before the accident, and after the accident it represents the path back to normalcy for Tom. The association with teamwork is referenced ironically: Daniel excels in the sport but only cares about winning and is thus not really a team player and the judge will later base his sentencing partly on the fact that as a team player Daniel should have known to behave better.
Water (Symbol)
Water becomes a symbol associated with significant moments in Tom’s life. A flashback in which Daniel maliciously holds his head underwater reveals a tendency of his brother to lose control of his emotions and acts a kind of latent foreshadowing of events. A trip to the pool with new friends at the school in the new town becomes a moment of transcendence from the darkness of the Black Tunnel and a morning swim with his girlfriend becomes the moment that “Tom Brennan came back, forever.”
Cooking (Symbol)
Cooking is a prevalent symbol throughout the story that stretches across the full range of characters. Gran’s notoriously bad cooking becomes the primary symbol of domestic turbulence because Mrs. Brennan had always been a good cook and the dependence upon Gran’s mostly intolerable food points up the effects of Tess lapsing into near-catatonia. Likewise, Kath was devoted to baking for Fin, but has been forced to change her entire method of preparing food for him since the accident left him immobile. Cooking even becomes a source of conflict between brother and sister when Tom—consumed by the status his skill at rugby gives him—mistakenly consumes an apple strudel which was a school cooking project of Kylie’s and becomes the stimulus for an explosive argument revealing the different ways they are dealing with the issues. Ultimately, cooking is also what brings Kylie and Aunt Kath closer.
