Elderly Daisy Duck
When John enters his mother’s room in order to take her to an award ceremony, he sees that she wears her “blue costume and silk jacket, her lady novelist’s uniform”. He notices that her shoes are white and “there is nothing wrong”, but they make her “look like Daisy Duck”. Her hair is washed and brushed back, but it “still looks greasy”. There is “a passive look” on her face. This imagery creates a feeling that Elizabeth is not only an elderly woman, but also very tired. The light colors of her outfit don’t match her somber look.
A dying star
John doesn’t think too highly of people, who write their books about his mother or come to get her autograph. He thinks about them as gold fish “circling the dying whale, waiting for their chance to dart in and take a quick mouthful”. All of them want to get a piece of her – her opinion, her signature, her approving or her disapproving – before she becomes a yesterday and her star dies. This imagery creates a rather sad feeling, for it is easy to imagine how unpleasant it could be to say goodbye to one’s fame and respect.
Unattractiveness of flesh
Elizabeth falls asleep during their flight. John leans over to clip the belt across her lap. Due to her position – she lies slumped deep in her seat - , “he can see up her nostrils, into her mouth, down the back of her throat”. He can imagine “the gullet, pink and ugly, contacting as it swallows, like a python, drawling things down to the pear-shaped belly-sac”. This imagery helps to portray that embarrassment of children when they realize that their parents are also made of blood and flesh, they the same physiological processes happen in their bodies too. Although John is not a child, he still feels that kind of embarrassment.
