Water

Water takes different forms in this novel and these forms symbolize different things. As a river, it is the passage of time, the motion of change over time. The river exacts a price of lives through drowning in the beginning, as time exacts the price of aging and death. Water in the form of the ocean symbolizes the journey, with many of the pilgrims traveling by sea. But the sea also symbolizes the chaos of life, she writes that a travelers flow of time is more like “archipelagos in an ocean of chaos” (53).

The Earth

The earth is the maternal force that nourishes travelers and pilgrims. it warms and nourishes lost souls in "The Earth's Nipples," and the author describes Peloponnese as a maternal hand testing the temperature of the bath water. It is the also the real home of the pilgrim, just as the body...