Unwelcoming neighborhood
As soon as Liza saw the building where Annie lived, she remembered “her comparing it to a prison”. She had already “saw big ugly schools all over New York, but this was worst of all”. The place could be compared to “a military bunker”. Not only the building was ugly, the smell around was horrible too. It was “a combination of disinfectant, grass, and the subway on a hot day, with the last one of those the strongest. The second thing she noticed was “how the prison atmosphere continued inside”. Even «the interior glass windows, on doors and looking into offices, were reinforced with mesh”. The imagery creates an impression of shabbiness, ugliness, and poverty.
Being gay
No one could even imagine that Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer were a gay couple. Then Liza understood that the thing she knew about gays were usually clichés. She would expect them “ acting masculine, or not getting along with men, or making teacher’s pets of girls ”. The only one thing which could be taken as a hint was that Ms. Stevenson “ got mad when a kid made a crummy anti-gay remark ”. This imagery portrays ignorance and the most widely-spread clichés about gays.
A wonderful voice
The first thing Liza noticed about Annie was her voice. She was “walking toward the colonial rooms”, when she heard someone singing. The song she was singing made it “ easy to imagine “ Plimoth ” Plantation or Massachusetts Bay Colony ”. The voice was magnificent, the girl looked “ as if she could have been a young colonial woman, and her song seemed sad ”. The imagery creates a feeling of complete dissolution in music.
