Time (Motif)
The motif of time becomes the most vivid in the story. And at different moments the attitude towards it is deferent: in some places it runs fast, in some – time stops, the author accurately describes just one moment for a quite long period, it takes more time to read about the event than the very event lasted. Somewhere the ages just pass before reader’s eyes in a couple of sentences. Very rarely just one moment of a hero’s life is equal to the page of its describing. The author plays with time, shows its uncertainty and obscurity.
Humankind (Symbol)
Nim is a symbol of humankind in the story. He is a man at the beginning of the human development: he is brave, strong enough, but he is primitive, he doesn’t want to accept Dor’s progressive ideas and principles. One thing, he is sure about, is that there is some High Power. And he wants to get this power with the Tower. Like it was in the known legend in Bible: the humankind wanted to get to God, having built the Tower of Babylon.
Allegory – Nim’s tower
This tower represents here the tower of Babylon, which is described in Bible. Nim, as well as the people of Babylon, wants to get the gods, bring them down, or rather to become their’s equals. But he fails, as well as the people in Biblical legend. Thus, the author wants to show that a man cannot reach or supersede God. Higher Powers just ought to be obeyed.
