Wait!” Giovanni called after them. “His name!
-- Giovanni Lawson (Dedication)

Importance: Throughout the novel, names are an important symbol of identity and relationships, and especially individual agency in resistance to the Authority. In this scene, Giovanni asks a human couple for the name of the child they leave with Giovanni, as the couple runs from an unnamed threat. Of course, in reality, the reader later learns that this is only a story Giovanni told Vic. Symbolically, then, this quote represents a Gio’s broader desire to communicate with remnants of the humans he destroyed, asking them to name the son he created. In this imaginary prologue, Gio calls after humans to ask them to give him a name, symbolically asking for their blessing to care for this child, which they cannot give him.

It would make him like a puppet. A marionette.
-- Nurse Ratched (chapter 5)

Importance: When Vic uses wood to cover the exposed portions of Hap’s...