Symbols: The Fire Tower

Question 1

What does the fire tower represent?

Answer 1

The fire tower represents thwarted human attempts to dominate nature:

Question 2

What is the fire tower exactly?

Answer 2

The fire tower is a manmade landmark inside the marsh and the setting of two fateful (and one fatal) meetings between Kya and Chase.

Question 3

The fire tower is weathered and rotting, suggesting what?

Answer 3

It is weathered and rotting, suggesting that nature is working to destroy it, to take it down.

Question 4

What do Kya and Chase represent? How does this tie into the symbol of the fire tower?

Answer 4

If Kya serves as an avatar/icon for the marsh and if Chase, the golden boy, represents the town, then the fire tower represents the strained relationship between town and marsh.

Question 5

Explain the significance of the fire tower’s height. What does this strengthen the argument of?

Answer 5

The fire tower sits high above the marsh and allows a beautiful view of it, but it also allows people to climb up and literally look down on the marsh, much in the way the townspeople look down on Kya.

Question 6

What is the reason as to why the fire tower strengthens the argument that the townspeople look down on Kya?

Answer 6

The fire tower sits high above the marsh and allows a beautiful view of it, but it also allows people to climb up and literally look down on the marsh, much in the way the townspeople look down on Kya.

Question 7

What is significant about Kya pushing Chase from the fire tower?

Answer 7

When Kya pushes Chase from the fire tower, she pushes him, too, from him place at the top of the social hierarchy and returns him to nature, to her domain.

Question 8

What is Kya’s domain?

Answer 8

The marsh

Question 9

What is Chase’s domain?

Answer 9

the fire tower/man-made structure obstructing the view of the marsh