The Diner
The symbolism of a diner as the story’s setting is more symbolically complex than it might at first seem. It is easy to dismiss the diner as merely a genetic symbol representing the broader society in microcosm, but it goes much deeper. Such diners-especially their front-counter seat—are iconic within the history of the Civil Rights Movement as they were usually declared off-limits to black Americans who were forced to sit in segregated sections in the back of the restaurant and furthermore forced to wait for one of those seats to become available even if nobody at all was occupying the counter seats.
John
Likewise, the alien character is complex on symbolic level. Initially introduced by the narrator simply as “one of them” immediate situates him as symbol of any disempowered minority group forced to suffer humiliation as the result of prejudicial discrimination. Upon learning that the alien’s name is John, the symbolism immediately gets trickier since for decades that was the most common name for males in America. By giving him that name, the story moves beyond mere allegory about racial discrimination to become about any sort of discrimination by the majority against a minority. The message here is that under the right circumstances, any of us could become John.
Kathy
Kathy represents those that enjoy the power of being a part of the majority, but suffer the same consequences as those in the minority. In other words, Kathy represents the status of women of any color.
Bogey’s Fedora
On two separate occasions the narrator refers to the type of hat Humphrey Bogart wore in the film Casablanca. (Although, she may be confusing it with The Maltese Falcon considering Rick Blaine goes mostly hatless until the final scene at the airport.) The first reference is to John the alien wearing a fedora when he first arrives and then later she makes the reference again to describe the government agents who suddenly flood onto the scene. It is a detail just odd enough to call attention to itself and thus force itself into the sphere of symbolism. The most obvious interpretation is that all the G-men look exactly alike—which they generally do in real life—but all of them also look bear a resemblance to the blue alien, suggesting that one cannot and certainly should not make assumptions about others based on physical appearances.
The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer is a symbol that for readers at the time of publication would have been immediately obvious. Alas, that is no longer the case. In its time, the National Enquirer was pop culture shorthand for tabloid sleaze operating on a high degree of unverified conspiratorial theories too absurdly ridiculously to be taken seriously as journalism by even the most barely sentient of human beings. Needless to say, in post-2017 American society this symbolism is no longer nearly as obvious and would need to be explained to some readers
