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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Glass Divider
The glass wall that divides Fonny from Tish during their visiting time at the jail represents the government system keeping them apart. Although the glass is a constant throughout the book, their relationship to the glass changes, illustrating their ability to continue to build their love despite Fonny’s incarceration. In the novel’s opening, Tish describes the glass as a barrier. It is soundproof, forcing them to use the phone to talk, but Tish has already begun to adapt to the glass. Noting that people tend to look down when on the phone, she makes a conscious effort to look up at Fonny, an indication that she is already learning how to express her love to him despite this new obstacle. Nevertheless, she wishes that people who love each other would never have to look at each other through glass, showing how painful the experience is. Later, as they discover that their love is strong despite separation, she and Fonny kiss each other through the glass. By the end of the book, they have become so much stronger than the system dividing them that Tish describes them making love through the glass, the partition no match for the strength of their love.
Fonny’s Sculpture
The sculpture Fonny gives to Sharon represents the strength of Black men and the pain they face living in an oppressive society. Tish notes that the figure always makes her think of her father, which indicates that its subject is Black masculinity. The figure is powerful, with long legs spread wide, but it is also an image of torment. One foot is caught, unable to move, showing the ways the world traps Black men. Tish comments that the image seems an odd thing for a young person to create until considered in the context of Fonny’s time at vocational school. The school is designed to continue the oppression of its students, preventing them from becoming smarter and instead teaching them to be slaves. In this light, the sculpture indicates Fonny’s consciousness of how racism holds Black men captive. Fonny gives the figure to Sharon on the day he and Tish decide to get married, a symbol of him formally joining their family and of his transition from boyhood to manhood.
A Raised Fist
When Fonny and Tish separate after their jailhouse visits, they salute each other with raised fists. This gesture represents the love and courage they maintain during Fonny’s incarceration, as well as their understanding that his imprisonment results from the racist oppression of the United States, not from any wrongdoing on his part. In the time and place of the book’s setting, the raised fist salute is most associated with the Black Power movement, a political movement concerned with self-determination for Black people, including freedom from the forms of government oppression that led to Fonny’s arrest. This gesture connects them to the larger social movement and symbolizes how Fonny and Tish gather strength throughout their ordeal by seeing themselves as part of a larger pattern of people struggling against injustice. Tish sees the shame experienced by women like her visiting loved ones in jail and counters that the only people who should feel shame are those who built the jails. The habit of ending their visiting sessions with the raised fist salute keeps the ideas of Black power fresh in their minds despite the larger system’s attempts to hold them down.
