The allegory of brain damage
This novel is what some might call a missing narrative. Although violence occurs in many fictional stories, it is unusual to most that this novel focuses so much of its attention on the horrific aftermath of one traumatic brain injury. Therefore, the brain damage represents the missing allegory, the story about what actually happens to people when they sustain brain injuries because of human violence.
Cora's symbolic failure to empathize
Cora is on the hunt. If she learns a lesson from Xan, it is that meddling in his business was ultimately more disturbing to her than him. Without understanding the truth of brain damage, Cora thinks Xan is experiencing reality the same way he was before, and she learns the slow, scary, and difficult way that actually, his reality is shaped by traumatic injury now. He tries to find peace with the reality of his situation, and Cora tries to cope with the fear that his reality induces in herself.
Clint Smoker's failure to be non-violent
When Smoker learns the true effects of violence, he is mentally disturbed, like Cora. Except that in Smoker's opinion, he has a murderous response—it is as if his body refuses to live on the same planet as someone who would do violence to another person. He goes to execute judgment, but he accidentally executes judgment against himself, because he too resorted to violent.
Andrews, the archetypal anti-father
Xan doesn't know this, but the one person he hates most is his father. He thinks Andrews is actually his father's competition, but actually, Andrews is the true father and Meo is the adoptive dad. Xan never knew until after he had sustained the injuries from Andrew's gang. Therefore, Joseph Andrews represents the opposite of a good father. He abandons his son, leaves him to a difficult life, then when the son grows to resent him, he harms the child.
The motif of damage and attack
Because of how violent the people in this novel have decided to be, their fates are constantly worsened by their own hands. Many of the characters feel emotions that are powerful, but instead of working through those emotions, they allow the emotions to cause them to become violent, and once violent, they practice malice. By attacking other people, they harm themselves. For Andrews and Fingers, that means literal death, and for Clint Smoker, it means the guilt of murder.
