Fire
In the beginning of the novel, Malcolm remembers how their house was burned by white supremacists shortly after they moved to another city. The fire was just the beginning and soon after, Malcolm’s father was killed as well. The fire has a symbolic meaning just as the house destroyed by the fire has a symbolic meaning as well. The house stands for the visible result and it also stands as proof that the black community began to be more independent, slowly started to gain more power and they could now make a difference. Even though usually the white population regarded their efforts as something negative and dangerous, the black community slowly began to nurture the desire to be respected. The fire symbolizes the white’s community efforts to destroying the progress made by the black community. Since it was something that was visible, the progress made many feel uncomfortable because they realized that they could no longer control the black community. Because of this, the white community tried to scare the black people and try to make them give up trying to build something for themselves.
Know their place
A common motif in the novel is the way the whites consider the blacks. While the whites are no longer feeling a strong hatred towards blacks as they did shortly after the end of the civil war they still believed that blacks didn’t deserved the same possibilities as the whites. Because of this, when a black child wanted to become something that would give him some kind of authority, it was seen as something negative and it was highly discouraged. This idea appears for the first time when Malcolm expresses his wish to become a lawyer, something that was seen as being unacceptable by the white people around him.
Someone to blame
A recurrent motif present in the novel is the idea that the white people are to blame for all the hardship that the blacks have to suffer. Be it gambling, prostitution, drugs or alcohol, Malcolm never thinks that these problems are the result of a bad lifestyle of lack of education, but rather the result of the oppression the black people suffer. Because of this, Malcolm blames the white people for the fact that he is unsuccessful and for his suffering.
New life
After Malcolm is released from prison, he buys three items that represent a part of his life and that also symbolize his desire to take his life into his own hands and his desire to become a better man. The fact that Malcolm bought those items on his own accord represents a conscious act of taking back control of his life and active act of self-possession.
Name
When Malcolm finds his new faith, he also changes his name to symbolize a new leaf in his life. By choosing "X" as his last name, he wanted it to symbolize the names of which the blacks were robed when they were taken slaves. Because the slaves were given names by their masters and because they often didn’t have a last name, they lost the contact they had with their ancestors and with their mother land. What Malcolm tries to accomplish to his new name is a connection to his unknown predecessors he never had the chance to meet and also a connection to a way of life and culture he never knew.
