How does the author use symbolism in the novel, We Cast a Shadow?

In the novel, the author uses shadows to symbolize an array of concepts, including social invisibility, the threat of being black, and the narrator’s own dread. He describes Araminta’s skin as having the “dark of a shadow in a cave” (33). Later he refers to his emotions as “shadows on the wall of my psyche” (211). Mostly, the shadows symbolize the narrator’s fear and paranoia, resulting from his being a black man in a deeply racist society. Referring to his family, he says that shadows “followed us wherever we went” (46).