Importance of Earth and Soil

Images of earth and soil have ambivalent meanings for Jacob. On the one hand, when he is given the gift of a potted plant when he is about to leave his home in Cairo, soil represents home: on the other hand, when that plant and its soil are lost to him, it represents how he feels lost (cut off) from his homeland. When he is an adult, soil is something dirty, used to refer to how he imagines he and Doc would feel ("soiled" by their assumed contact with the AIDS virus) if they tried to have a comfortable, "normal" life as a gay male couple in a community with non-homosexuals.