Rat

Rats symbolize the brutal, sometimes absurd nature of capitalism and the way it affects disadvantaged members of society. Eric becomes interested in a line of poetry that describes rats becoming the new unit of currency. Eric and his currency analyst Michael Chin discuss the bizarre and grotesque effects that such a change would have. Meanwhile, the protesters in the novel use live rats as a prop in their anti-capitalist protest. In these ways, the symbol of the rat becomes an unsettling symbol of both capitalism and the malcontents of a capitalistic society.

Yen

The Japanese yen symbolizes the ineffability of existence and the unknowability of the future. Eric becomes bedeviled by the strange phenomenon of the yen’s ceaseless rise in value, and he loses much of his personal fortune in making investments based on the idea that the value of the yen is due to...