The mist (symbol)
The mist is a symbol of forgetfulness. “The thick mist” covers not only the ground but people’s minds too, making them forget things they once knew or events which have happened recently. Axl mentions that “it’s queer the way they the world’s forgetting people and things from only yesterday and the day before that”. The mist is “like a sickness “, which “come over us all”. The land “had become cursed with a mist of forgetfulness”. There is even an assumption that it is God’s punishment for people’s sins. It might be that God had been so ashamed of people’s sins that he “himself had forgotten much from out past”.
The island (allegory)
The mysterious island the characters of the novel talk so much about is an allegory of afterlife. Those, who “wish to cross to the island”, should be questioned by the boatman, a certain character whose role resembles one of Charon. Lonely shadows roam around the island till the end of the world but sometimes couples are permitted to cross to the island together if they are “bonded by love”. Those, who cross to the island, can’t return back.
A trip (motif)
Axl and Beatrice take a journey in order to visit their son, whom they haven’t visited for a rather long period of time. However, as it turns out to be later, this trip leads them not their son but themselves. The pair finds their recollections, “one by one”. Besides visiting their son, restoring their memories is the main reason why they are “on this journey”.
