Motif: Music
Even from the first chapter, Solomon writes about music and how music influenced his life. Solomon learned to play the violin while he was still a free man; after he was made a slave, music is his only escape. Music reminds him of home, his family, and freedom; it provides escape, hope, and sustenance when his life seems empty and bleak.
Symbol: Chains
One of the most important and blatant symbols in the novel is the chains. The chains are used as a symbol for slavery, and Solomon mentions them frequently after he is captured and made a slave. The chains are important because they illustrate how black people were literally physically constrained as well as generally oppressed and deprived of their freedom and autonomy by white Southerners.
Symbol: Whip
Another commonly used symbol in the novel is the whip. Most slave owners and overseers use the whip to assert their power over the slaves and to make sure that they do not rebel against their masters. With the whip, whites incite fear in their slaves and make them pliant, submissive, and obedient. The whip thus stands for the cruel and violent way in which slaves are treated by their owners.
Symbol: Pass
The pass is a simple piece of paper on which a slave owner says that slave can leave his or her plantation, and on which the slave owner's name is affixed. The pass is a symbol of the complete control a master has over his slaves. It circumscribes the slave's movements, limits their autonomy, treats them like a child, and is their only key to avoid being captured or beaten.
Allegory: Daniel and Jonah
After Solomon comes out of the swamp unharmed, he writes that Ford tells him, "As Daniel came forth unharmed from the den of lions, and as Jonah had been preserved in the whale's belly, even so had I been delivered from evil by the Almighty." Both stories of Daniel and Jonah are allegories for God delivering believers from suffering and danger, and Solomon is comforted by these allegories because he can compare his own situation to theirs.
