How does William Kennedy use imagery in Ironweed?

Kennedy also uses an elaborate web of imagery that becomes a leit motif, flowing throughout the narrative. Many individual recurrent images throughout the story: there is the image of the "weed" that reflects the particular resilience characteristic of the "ironweed" of the title and characteristic also of the derelict Francis Phelan; there is the hero image as seen in Francis's participation in the union strike, his career in major league baseball, and his subsequent attempts to rescue his friends. But ultimately the one underlying image derives from the flight motif that characterizes the protagonist who has so often used flight as a means to escape, rather than confront, situations emanating from acts of free will. In this way, Ironweed explores like Greek tragedy the existential conundrum of whether man is inextricably caught in the cosmic forces of fate or whether he may, through use of free will, create his future.