The house imagery
The setting of the house is unique enough that it constitutes its own kind of imagery. A broke couple inherits a house and finds a way to earn enough money to survive by renting the downstairs to another family. The house imagery becomes a juxtaposition between two ways of life which invites comparison and contrast. The down-to-earth first floor family is a responsible and hard-working family who uses their home to earn money. The upper floor is a less responsible and more indulgent family. Together the families show two sides of a spectrum of responsibility.
Money and business
The families are poor, so much of their point of view is dedicated to money and stress about money, and stress about earning money. Downstairs, that experience of money and stress drives them to correct action which blooms throughout the novel's time showing that their productive work is rewarded with more money. By contrast, the upstairs parents succumb to the emotional pressure of money problems, and before long they are spiraling into inaction and alcoholic stupor.
Alcohol and gambling
The imagery of vice comes into the story through the Pickles company who are often pickled by alcohol. They are chronically plagued by money stress because they do not work hard nor accept responsibility for their family of five. Instead, they go through seasons of rapid feast and famine cycles that manifests itself as manic depression. During depressive states, the family agonizes through crisis after crisis. When occasionally, they have enough and a little more, then they slingshot toward manic behavior, often wasting their entire budget on stupid gambles and alcohol.
Children and parents
In the background of the novel, another important imagery emerges among the house. The Pickles kids are watching their parents and the downstairs family, and the downstairs family is watching the upstairs family. Both the sets of children are diverse with different opinions on their community, and over time, the reader sees that the imagery of their presence in the novel has a trajectory. The childhood aspect of the novel shows that these children will have a chance to choose between the two models of parenthood, and among the nine children in the house, each one goes their own way.
