A broken family
Ciaran and Corrigan loved their father dearly, so when he left them they couldn’t believe it. It was so difficult to get used to his absence. The boys sat in “a wardrobe full of his old suits and trousers”. They slopped their feet in “father’s shoes” and let sleeves of his costumes touch their ears. Their mother found them “dressed in his gray suits, the sleeves rolled up and the trousers held in place with elastic bands”. This imagery creates unpleasant, depressing feelings, for it depicts suffering of children caused by their parents’ divorce.
Mean streets
Like any other big city, New York is full of surprises. There are fancy districts, always busy business centers, notorious night clubs and of course mean streets which can make one’s blood run cold. That district where Corrigan lived was a typical mean street. There were “plastic bags” flying everywhere and rubbish littering every corner. “If you watched the rubbish for a while you could tell the exact shape of the wind”. That was probably the only one “alluring” thing there. One was able to see “whole, bright, slapping curlicues and large figures eights, helixes and whorls and corkscrew”. This imagery gives a rather disturbing but very intriguing feeling. It is like to end up in an unfamiliar place.
Bread and circus!
The crowd was getting bigger and bigger, for everyone was aware that something unusual, something for them to think and talk about for the rest of the day, was going on. What could be better that someone else’s tragedy? Shouts “do it, for christsake!” pierced silence. Then “a torrent of chatter was released, a call-and-response”. There was “a domino line of laughter, but with an edge to it, a longing, an awe”. This imagery helps a reader to immerse in that atmosphere. It is like to stand in the middle of that crowd and hear all those shouts, laughs, and jokes.
