Once

Carrots (or specifically, carrot soup) are Felix’s favorite food. They remind him of living at home with his parents. Because of this, they carry a deep symbolic significance for him, causing him to associate them with the comfort of home and safety. When he finds a whole carrot in his soup at the orphanage at the beginning of the novel, he immediately believes that this is a message that his parents sent him. He thinks this means that they are coming to retrieve him from the orphanage. This belief is a product of his young imagination, not yet exposed to the horrors of Nazi-occupied Poland. However, the carrot is actually given to him in commiseration by the cook at the orphanage, Sister Elwira. It is likely that she had heard of the fate of Poland’s Jewish people and did what she could to make Felix feel better, even though he does not know.

Despite his misrecognition of the meaning of the carrot in his soup, carrots remain an important symbol of comfort for Felix throughout the rest of the novel. The most beautiful, tasty, and nutritious part of a carrot is the root, symbolizing the necessity of growing underground for Jewish youth at the time.