How does the author use symbolism in the novel, Whistle Me Home?

Symbolism can be found in images such as the cemetery and its attendant meanings, Noli's antiseptic home, and the physical journey to Florida that Alice makes (while Noli and TJ make equally momentous emotional journeys.) Foremost may be the use of "home" as a symbol for safety (though, to Noli's shock, when she looks it up in a dictionary she discovers the word can also mean "one's abode after death.") Wersba uses a dream motif featuring Noli lost in New York and trying to find her way home. Noli believes she has found her spiritual home in TJ, but this is not permanent. At the end of the book, her dream comes to a different conclusion. Her nightmare-feelings of loss and frustration are replaced by "a feeling of joy" as she finds herself on a bus traveling home "cleaving the wind like the geese do when they fly in formation." The last line of the book, "She—Noli Brown—is coming home" seems to symbolize that Noli has achieved the kind of self-awareness she will need to accept herself and others. She is becoming comfortable with who Noli Brown is.