Edith as a foil
Edith is like Phyllisia in several ways, but different in important ways as well. Through their friendship, they are like left eye and right eye, gaining a synthetic point of view that helps them make sense of their distressing lives. Edith is also disenfranchised, but whereas Phyllisia trusts her father until she learns that he isn't trustworthy; Edith doesn't have that privilege. Secretly, she knows about the abuse in her home, and the poverty problem continues to stand between them. Phyllisia thinks about money in one way, but to Edith, a small taste of Phyllisia's wealth would change her life forever.
High school and bildungsroman
The transition into high school is a symbol compounding the effects of Phyllisia's move from the West Indies. The transition is timed in synchronocity with the natural changes that come with high school. In other words, the novel is showing that this time will be the time of her incitement into adulthood. Through the story, we see a bildungsroman, because the protagonist exits innocence, learning the shortcomings of her father, her family, and herself, and then ultimately learning about death and being initiated into human community as an adult through mourning and forgiveness.
The father's approval
The approval of Phyllisia's father is a symbol for religious yearning. In short, the time she spends would feel meaningful if it were impressing her father, but her father isn't impressed whatsoever by the intellectual prowess of young Phyllisia. He likes women who are obedient and attractive, and she is less attractive than her sisters and mother, and certainly not obedient. The love of the father turns into a thirst that Phyllisia herself must fill in adulthood, because by nature, she outgrows her attachment to her father.
The mother
When the mother slowly starts to die, Phyllisia feels inertia pulling her in the strange new direction of autonomy and independence. She longs for independence, like a prisoner longs for freedom, but instead of finding a paradise, she finds that independence and adulthood are quite painful and horrifying, as if that prisoner had escaped into the frozen tundra to die. When the mother dies, Phyllisia realizes that the end of adult life is always death, and she herself will also die. The death of the mother symbolizes the final exit from the paradise of innocence into the pain of the adult experience.
CPS and the removal from home
In the twin stories of Phyllisia and Edith's simultaneous awakenings, there comes a symbolic moment when the children are removed from Edith's home, and when her father and others have literally died. This comes at the same time Phyllisia is being removed from her home because of her distressed and aggressive father. Calvin agrees to let her daughter stay with him, but the symbol is clear. Although CPS takes children from their parents, the moment is a symbol for time, because it is time that universally removes children from their parents.
