Jean McConville (symbol)
Jean McConville symbolically represents the torture and suffering subjected to the Irish citizens who are suspected to be British informers. The IRA has tortured and killed many innocent people who are suspected of liaising with the British. The killings are brutal and inhumane. Jean is kidnapped in front of her ten children and brutally dragged to the waiting van. Thirty years later, Jean's children discover that she was killed when they find her remains.
The Locked Bathroom (Symbol)
The author emblematically uses the locked bathroom to represent the challenges of raising children. Jean is a mother of ten, and several of them are still young. As a single mother, Jean has all the responsibilities before her to ensure that the children are well-fed, clothed, housed, and educated. The thought that she has no job to enable her to give everything to her children troubles her. Therefore, when she finds an opportunity to lock herself in the bathroom to take a shower, she finds temporal peace of mind. The author writes, "When you have young children, sometimes where you can find a moment of privacy is behind a locked bathroom door."
The symbol of the Irish Republican Army (IRA)
The author uses IRA symbolically to represent torture, merciless killings, and abductions. The IRA is a criminal gang masquerading as a state army tasked with rooting out the British soldiers. Any person suspected to be an informer of the British soldiers is brutally abducted, tortured, and killed. Jean's remains are found thirty years later. When the IRA went to kidnap Jean, her children unknowingly opened the door, and several people stormed inside. The author says, "But when they opened the door, a gang of people burst inside. It happened so abruptly that none of McConville's could say precisely how many there were – it was roughly eight people, but it could have been ten or twelve." The trauma Jean's children go through is a representation of what the dependents of the victims of IRA go through.
The Occupants of Divis Flats (motif)
Divis Flats symbolizes the fear people have towards IRA. No one dares to interfere with the activities of the gang. IRA also has brainwashed people to eliminate any person associated with the British soldiers. When the gang comes to kidnap Jean, every tenant in the Davis Flats remains indoors with fear. There is no single neighbor who comes to rescue Jean. The author writes, "Normally, there were people about at night, even in the wintertime – kids kicking a ball through the hallway or laborers coming home from work. But Archie noticed the complex seemed eerily vacant, almost as if the area had been cleared. There was nobody to flag down, no neighbor who could sound the alarm."
Jean's Children (symbol)
Jean's children represent child-mother and affection. When Jean is kidnapped in their presence, they cry out and hang on her legs to prevent her from leaving. Archie is the eldest child during the kidnap, and he asks the kidnappers to allow him to follow them. Archie is just sixteen years, but he is determined to defend her mother from the senseless armed killers. The author writes, "He kept close to his mother, shuffling along, and she clung to him, not wanting to let go."
