Poverty (allegory)
Poverty is an allegory of simplicity. One would hardly start arguing about the fact that money helps to gain some freedom, and a poor person has to look for ways to earn it. When money is not a problem, one can choose what to eat. However, when money is the main problem, “your food is bread and margarine, or bread and wine, and even nature of food is governed by lies.” You have to buy “rye bread instead of household bread,” because it is cheaper. You stop “sending your clothes to the laundry.” You stop doing many things that used to be a part of your daily routine. It is a simple life but rather “boring.” The allegory of lacking money as a way to simpler life is rather ironic, but still it is very vital.
Bouillon Zip (symbol)
Bouillon Zip is a symbol of poverty and starvation. It has “a vile, sour odour, a mixture of slops and synthetic soup” and costs “twenty-five centimes a packet.” People who have to drink this disgusting mixture “are starving, or near it.” Boris used to entertain the protagonist with the fabulous stories about his splendid future, but as soon as the protagonist smells Zip in Boris’ attic, it becomes clear that Boris’ plans are just fantasies. The Bouillon Zip is the beginning of even a more terrible scenario. There are going to be days when they won’t have even it.
Discovering new life (motif)
The protagonist discovers a new life in France and this is the main motif of the early stages of the memoir. It is “a fairly trivial story” about the world that “awaits you if you are ever penniless.” He gets a chance to see what “really goes in the souls of PLONGUERS and tramps and Embankment sleepers.” There are some things that the protagonist has learned by “being hard up.” What is more, he shall never again “think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels,” nor “expect a beggar to be grateful when” he gives him “a penny,” nor “subscribe to the Salvation Army.”
