The poetry plane
One of the novel's covers has the words Distant Star written in the clouds by airplane. That is a visual cue of this main symbol. It is the main symbol in the text because the narrator is a poet at school for poetry, and this mysterious man, Carlos Weider, writes the most brilliant poetry with his airplane in the sky. The critics at the narrator's school praise his poetry as superb, and the reader learns later that the poet also uses the plane to shoot down enemies from the sky. He is a symbolic hero who keeps the people's heads up (so to speak), with heavenly poetry.
Ruiz-Tagle's double identity
This 23-year-old is a poetic vigilante. He does not obey convention, nor is he interested in tradition or received authority. He is not schooled, but he is rather insightful. His double last name turns out to be a symbol for his double identity: on the one hand, he is the narrator's acquaintance, and on the other hand, he is secretly the airplane poet himself. His double-identity is a hero motif. Like Superman and Batman, he has a normal identity and a super identity.
The imprisonment
It is important for the novel that the narrator goes to jail. The imprisonment is a symbolic martyrdom, so that the novel bares the full weight of government injustice and instability. The narrator does not just hear about imprisonments, he actually experiences the broken system himself. The imprisonment is a natural symbol for fate and government control, and it shows the reader that there is a serious conundrum between government and people, should the power become imbalanced.
Juan Stein's disappearance
The quest for Juan Stein is symbolic. On the surface, it seems literal. They are looking for their missing friend. Then again, it is clearly an aesthetic expression for an emotion that they are experiencing. Each day, people go missing, and the quest to save the missing people is an emotion that defines the whole community because of the growing government corruption. The missing person ends up dead, which is not comforting, and although they try to mourn him correctly, they cannot find the grave.
The famous policeman
In the end, the famous policeman, Abel Romero, has the narrator's attention. They see each other in Barcelona some twenty years after the events of the book. In terms of form, this is the novel's denouement. The finale of the novel is shaped by the betrayal of the hero. The narrator plays Judas Iscariot, and the policeman plays Pontius Pilate. They betray Weider together and Romero gives money to the narrator. So much money that the narrator retires to Paris where he will try to forget that he just gave up Weider to this "famous policeman." The famous policeman is a symbol perhaps for the government, and perhaps for the devil, as a symbol for the way the nation betrayed itself, perhaps.
