"Awash in bulletins" (Visual Imagery)
In Chapter One, the NACA begins aggressively hiring due to labor shortages during WWII. Visual imagery is used to depict their recruitment efforts: “As the war intensified, the town post office was awash in civil service job bulletins, competing for the eyes of locals and college students alike.” The visual imagery of awash communicates an overwhelming tide of postings, which compete for the eyes, so they must be bright and interesting—a visual image that encourages imagination, rather than simply stating what has been put up in the post office.
"A humid inferno" (Haptic Imagery)
When Dorothy Vaughan works in a laundry room during the summer to make extra cash, haptic imagery is used to describe the experience: “The laundry was a humid inferno, the work as monotonous as it was uncomfortable.” The metaphor of the laundry being an inferno communicates how intolerable the room is, with the stifling, humid sensations making the monotony even more distasteful. Vaughan's transfer to Langley is a relief from this inferno.
"Perfumed with grown-up smells" (Olfactory Imagery)
In the prologue of Hidden Figures, Shetterly remembers childhood visits to her father’s building at Langley, which was “perfumed with the grown-up smells of coffee and stale cigarette smoke.” In this example of olfactory imagery, Shetterly enhances the relatability of the experience, invoking common odors. She also emphasizes the nostalgia of the image by specifying these are grown-up smells.
"Music of the calculating machines" (Auditory Imagery)
The calculators used by the West Computers make “music”: “a click every time its minder hit a key to enter a number, a drumbeat in response to an operations key, a full drumroll as the machine ran through a complex calculation; the cumulative effect sounded like the practice room of a military band’s percussion unit.” In this example of auditory imagery, Shetterly immerses the reader in the West Computers' world by detailing the percussion-like sounds of their work environment.
