The Tide
The second paragraph of "Creature" commences with imagery describing the geography of the location where the narrative takes place. "The Point was a frying pan–shaped spit of land that thrust out into the Atlantic. Beyond it, at low tide, you could see a crescent of rocks offshore, but at high tide the water hid them entirely." This is more effective use of imagery than it seems because it works as subtle foreshadowing. The description conveys the idea of danger hidden beneath the aesthetic preference of high tide. Later, the young narrator will call back to this imagery with a metaphor about being swept up in the tide of a charming but potentially menacing male object of her fiction-fueled fantasies.
Books
Imagery that is connected to books in one way or another is omnipresent throughout this collection. The middle-aged protagonist of the title story owns a bookstore and finds himself attracted to a younger female he has hired. "To the store, Kate wore faded, untucked shirts and jeans slashed at the knee. He was often tempted to tease her, tell her that just because she sold used books she didn’t have to wear used clothes." This description not only comments on the chasm that he sees separating them—differences in age, boss/worker dynamics, fashion sense—but also underlines the recurring theme illustrating how inextricably connected books and real life is to dedicated readers.
Character Description
One of the most efficient uses of imagery, especially in short stories where space is limited, is for the purpose of character description. The opening lines of "Hotel Seattle" waste no time at all. "In college, Paul would buy a fiesta-sized bag of Doritos on Sunday after Mass and lie stomach down on his bed with his textbooks and notebooks propped up against his pillow and do all his work for the week ahead. He didn’t stand up for hours at a time." Despite no foreshadowing of where this opening is going, that portrait of Paul carries a visceral power of confused expectations. One questions whether he is a lazy slacker or inventive revolutionary. The imagery suggests only that it could go either way.
Ghosts
The mother who is separated from her husband is a storyteller in "South." One of the stories she tells her kids during a car trip is about a ghost and part of that story is an explication of ghostly flesh. “It was like patina almost, that greenish color that gets on certain metals, you know, the way that bracelet of your father’s, the one he wears for his imaginary arthritis, the way that turns when he forgets to make someone polish it." This is one of the most effective uses of imagery in the book as what starts out as pure fiction quickly turns to intense reality. It is another example of the thematic focus on the seamless integration of fiction and real life for many people. At the same, it serves the singular story of connecting the fictional ghost to the ghost that her husband has become.
