Aladdin’s Lamp
The opening paragraph references Aladdin and his lamp and the genie who grants wishes. The story itself is about a group of men pursuing a goal that is patently nothing but a crazy dream unlikely to come true without the invention of just such powerful magic. The symbolism here is that for some people their dreams cannot be realized without the intervention of unlikely luck.
Harry Banjo’s Agent
The story concludes with, fortunately for the men, just such an invention of unlikely luck. Harry Banjo’s agent who figures out how his time in jail is just the gimmick needed to turn him into music star is the symbolic genie of the story who is able to grant their wish.
Gallows’ Fiver
Gallows is a strangely comic figure who is involved in the hopeless scheme of trying to raise money for a deposit on a house. Years before, back in Trinidad, he somehow or another lost a five pound currency note. Ever since—even once he moves to London—he can be seen with his head down engaged in a constant and never-ending search for that missing fiver. This is a magnificent symbol for impoverishment where those who depend on the smallest amount of money to merely survive are constantly in fear of losing it and always trying to find it.
Money
The rather uniquely styled narrator becomes a philosopher as well as a storyteller at times. Only occasionally, but significantly, does he stray from the topic at hand to engage in rumination. One of these diversions considers the difference between those who go contentedly about their job not pursuing inner dreams and those who do and he arrives at a conclusion. The difference is money. Money becomes the symbolic activating agent that can transform content with what one has into discontent with not having what one desires.
Hamdon Court
The group all together visit “Hamdon Court” which is, of course, a dialectical misspelling of Hampton Court, the palace most closely associated with King Henry VIII. The section is one of the funniest events in the novel as the misspelling of place quickly translates into a mistranslation of British history: Henry VII had “ten-twelve women” instead of six wives and two completely unrelated stories about Robert Bruce and King Alfred are fused into a single anecdote about “the fellar who was watching a spider and make the cakes burn.” The errors about the narrowest corridors in British history are ironic symbols of the fears among many native Britons at the time about the negative effects upon society colonial immigrants would perpetrate.
