Cockroach (symbol)
Cockroaches appear throughout the entire narrations and in some way have influence on the narrator’s life. The cockroach both directly and indirectly refers to Franz Kafka’s famous work The Metamorphosis. The direct reference appears n the first story called My Kafka Baggage. Later, the doctor finds cockroaches in each of his ears. The narrator is astonished by such a find and when trying examining his “congested ear” he “sang hymns and prayed that I’d see a small angel trapped in the canal”. He identifies the cockroach with an “angel” trapped in his ear, and wants to free the “poor thing” so it can “unfurl and pat dry her tiny wings, then fly to my lips and give me a sweet kiss for sheltering her metamorphosis.” Transforming of a cockroach into the angel represents the narrator’s hope for the “happy-end”, so the cockroach itself becomes the symbol of hope for happy ending, which is the opposite of the meaning in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.
Blanket (symbol)
After having woken up after the surgery on his feet, the narrator’s father said he was extremely cold and the narrator went to grab some extra blankets to cover his father with. He came to the nurse who gave a white blanket, but it was too thin, it was “laundered and sterilized a hundred times” and could not warm the old man. The symbolic meaning of the blanket is transformed on the state of health care, where “everybody was uninsured and unblanketed”. In this way the narrator wants to show that life itself also comes to the point where it becomes “worn out” like a blanket. This idea is supported by the narrator’s words: “For the first sixty-seven years of his life, my father had been a large and dark man. Now he was just another pale, sick drone in a hallway of pale, sick drones”
Eagle feathers (motif)
For American Indians, eagles are special birds, since they fly so high the Indians believe they have connection with Heavens. Thus their feathers are also important for Native American tradition, as through the feathers they get connected with the eagles and get connected with the Heavens. In the stories, feathers appear time after time, they do not carry some deep meaning in specific situations, but the feathers help the narrator to build the image of national identity of Indians, and eagle feather is a significant attribute.
