The name of Lotus (Symbol)
The town Lotus is aptly and symbolically named: it is an allusion to the land of the lotus-eaters from Homer's Odyssey. The lotus plant, when consumed, gave a blissful, pleasant feeling and made people forget their families and their homes. Frank and his friends saw Lotus as a stultifying, closed-off place in which people did not aspire to move beyond its borders. It seemed people there were filled with ennui and dull contentment with their ignorance, and Frank could not wait to leave.
The Light (Symbol)
\When in Atlanta, Frank lets his guard down walking in the city one night and a group of men attack him. He crawls into the darkness until another man helps him up, gives him a bit of money, and, when Frank tries to refuse it, says simply, "Forget it, brother. Stay in the light" (107). This isn't just a comment about avoiding dark alleyways; rather, as light is symbolic of truth, honesty, growth, and rebirth, Frank is really hearing that he needs to stop lying to himself, stop seeking the darkness of his memories and his trauma and instead move into the light of healing.
The Watch (Symbol)
Back in Lotus, Frank moves into his parents' old home and looks through their things. He finds a watch that symbolizes Lotus itself: "The Bulova watch was still there. No stem, no hands—the way time functioned in Lotus, pure and subject to anybody's interpretation" (120). This watch without stem and hands is paralleled in the iconoclastic way the women of the town go about doing things. They do not conform to hierarchies or schedules; they do not care what things are supposed to be like, just what they are like. Cee can heal in this world, just as she was harmed in the outside world of the doctor.
The Tree (Symbol)
The tree at the end of the novel fascinates Frank, who buries the young man under it and thinks to himself, "It looked so strong/So beautiful./Hurt right down the middle/But alive and well" (147). This is a powerful symbol of Frank and Cee themselves: they have been hurt mentally and physically, but they still stand, they still grow, and they are still beautiful. They may never get rid of their split, their scar, but they will endure and thrive.
The Experiments on Cee (Symbol)
The experiments the white doctor carries out on Cee, a Black women, violate her body, take away her autonomy, and reduce her to what is essentially a lab rat. These are symbolic of the larger conditions of slavery, which is the exact same thing on a macro scale. White people enslaved Black people, deprived them of their freedom, and inflicted cruel, torturous punishment on their bodies. Though this novel is set in the 1950s, it is powerfully resonant with echoes of slavery.
