The blank encyclopedias Elwood receives after winning a rigged competition symbolize the fact that hard work doesn’t always lead to positive—or fair—outcomes. When a busboy at the Richmond Hotel shows him the set of encyclopedias, Elwood immediately hopes nobody else will want them. However, a dishwasher expresses his interest in the set, so he and Elwood have a dish-drying race to see who will get to keep the books. Elwood wins, but when he brings the encyclopedias home, he discovers that all but one of them are blank, since the books themselves are only sample models used by salesmen to show customers what the set will look like on their shelves. As time goes on, Elwood begins to sense that everyone else in the kitchen knew that the encyclopedias weren’t real and that the entire dish-drying race was just a way to make him look stupid and work for free. This, in turn, causes him to question his belief that he will be able to advance in life by working hard and remaining diligent. And though Elwood himself never becomes fully discouraged about life’s inherent unfairness, the blank encyclopedias serve as a vivid image of futility and injustice in an indifferent world, ultimately foreshadowing the fact that Elwood’s sincere efforts at Nickel Academy will only lead to his death.
The Encyclopedias Symbol Timeline in The Nickel Boys
