Good v. Evil
From the very beginning, the novel situates the Torgas Valley lush with orchards of trees overgrown with apples in Biblical terms. This starts with the title and the epigraph from Paradise Lost from which it is taken. The title is a reference to Satan and his minions and the battle for the hearts and souls of men. The apple trees are imagery enough symbolic familiarity to need no explanation.
The Fires of Hell
You have to expect a little fire imagery in a story about good versus evil, scarecrow. Since this is a story steeped in the Biblical imagery of title, what you get is more than a little fire imagery. Many scenes take place at night with the characters list by bonfire or campfire. Imagers of fire and flame recur throughout the novel, but get most Biblical in one particularly hellish passage:
“The red light mushroomed out behind the trees. It was more than a glow now. A lance of flame cleared the tree-tops. Above the sound of steps there was a vicious crackling. From ahead came shrill cries and a muffled howling. The trees threw shadows away from the light.”
The Primitivism of Capitalism
In a case of epic irony, the nature of capitalism to appeal to the most primitive nature of man is demonstrated not through one of the wealthy orchard owners, but a migrant worker who literally owns nothing but a new car and some camping equipment. The rapidity with which he comes to associate his identity with consumerism sets the stage for a corrosively critical indictment of its effects when he truck is destroyed. In a matter of minutes he transforms from having gained status as a human being to having lost his humanity entirely:
“He turns white, and then he turns blue. Then he lets out a howl like a coyote and starts for ’em. They shoot him in the leg, but that don’t stop him. When he can’t run any more, he crawls for ’em, slavering around the mouth like a mad dog — just nuts, he just went nuts.”
The Christ Figure
The novel comes to a close with Jim Nolan literally having his human identity wiped clean away as the result of a shotgun blast. Mac takes the body the props it up—literally making it a prop for his sermon which claims Jim Nolan died for others because he never wanted anything for himself. The positioning of the body and the direction of the light all serve as imagery which leaves Jim not just martyred, but a Christ figure:
“He dragged Jim across the boards and leaned him against the corner post, and steadied him when he slipped sideways. London handed the lantern up, and Mac set it carefully on the floor, beside the body, so that its light fell on the head.”
