The waterfall (symbol)
The little town of Dales had a natural talisman, which the local citizens considered as a symbol of their town. It was the local waterfall, “an unstoppable force” as “water always found a way, it beat everything in the end”. There occurred even a phrase connected with the waterfall – “may the force be with you”. People visit the waterfall to collect their thoughts and ponder over their problems, and say that the waterfall fills them with the peace of mind. In the context, the waterfall is the symbol of life.
One body (allegory)
When Jackson was in a car, in any car, he always felt he was united with it on genetic level, and “he became a plural pronoun – they, we, us. The car and me, a bio-mechanical fusion of man and vehicle”. Allegorically speaking, Jackson and a car created a single body.
Death (allegory)
Reggie has seen many deaths already at her young age of sixteen. Her mother, her father, her friend Ms. MacDonald, people in the train crash, and she often was thinking about death. One day, she was going through some of her notes from school and was astonished by the fact how much she had forgotten, and she “wondered if eventually she would forget everything she’d learned”, and for her that was “death”. Allegorically speaking, life for Reggie is memory, and oblivion is death.
Greek Mythology motifs
The novel reveals many allusions to Greek mythology, and this attribution helps to develop the motif throughout the entire story. When Patrick tells Louise “to stop fretting” and say that she should let her son “spread his wings and learn to fly” she immediately thinks of Icarus, a Greek youth who died because had flown too near the sun and his wax wings had melted.
Another vivid allusion to Greek mythology concerns Jackson Brodie, who at a certain stage of his life was lucky to invest successfully some of his money. His ex-wife Julia told that “he was like Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold”.
Princess Diana, whom Reggie’s mother almost worshipped, is compared in the novel to Artemis, “pale moon goddess of the chase and chastity”, and to Athene, “wise and heroic, a warrior”. The comparisons contribute to the motif of Greek mythology as well.
