Today in our literary circles we reviewed the main events that happened up until page 51 and possible symbols that we found. I brought up the reoccurrence of birds in relation to Emmett. He says that the birds are his only good memory from the war and seems to have an infatuation with them. On page 35 the narrator describes him watching the birds. The narrator also informs us that Emmett keeps a book of all the birds he sees and has hopes of finding this one specific bird. I think that the bird is symbolic of perhaps some character trait of memory of Emmett's that we do not yet know. I also noticed the reoccurrence of money references. The narrator talks about the cost of the hotel, the car, Sam's credit card from Irene, etc. I still don't know the significance of these symbols but hopefully as the story progresses they will become more clear. I had some questions about the relationships between characters. Sam and Irene, Sam and Emmett, etc. I think once we learn more about the characters these relationships will become more clear.