The closet
The narrator describes the closet that Jennifer opens and the feelings that it arouses in her vividly: "It was a small closet, the type you’d find in these older homes, and it was crammed with clothes on hangers and shoes helter-skelter on the floor. I felt a chill, as though a ghost had slipped past me into the room. I hugged my arms as Jennifer pulled a cord to turn on the light. She pressed the clothes to one side of the closet."
Through this description, the narrator is able to convey the lack of order of the closet as the reader is able to develop a visual image of the same in their subconscious. Additionally, the reader is able to conceptualize the feeling of fear that the closet arouses in the narrator.
The description of Baby William
"Baby William stood on the stoop, saggy diaper hanging halfway down his fat legs, his face all red and tears making paths through the dirt on his cheeks. His black curls was so thick they looked like a wig on his head. He raised his arms out to me when he saw me."
This description precipitates the reader's imagination as they are able to visualize the baby with "saggy diapers", "tears marking paths through the dirt on his cheeks" and "his thick black curls." Through this careful and rather varied choice of words, the narrator is able to achieve imagery.
The description of Charlotte Werkman
The narrator (Miss Mackie) describes Charlotte Werkman vividly a situation that is able to enable the creation of mental images in the reader's mind as they read through the description: "She was striking. She had to be in her forties—maybe even her fifties—but, except for a starburst of faint lines at the outer corners of her eyes, her skin looked as if it belonged in an Ivory soap commercial. Her gray eyes were huge and her hair, which was a pale, pale blond—nearly white—was clipped into a short ponytail at the nape of her neck."
Henry Allen's actions and Lita Jordan's singing
The narrator through the use of vivid description conveys the actions of Henry Allen to the reader in a way that enables the reader to visualize them as they happen:
"He slid his warm palms under my nightgown and up the outside of my legs and I bent over to kiss him, long and soft the way he liked it."
Additionally, the narrator describes the effect of Lita Jordan's singing vividly a situation that enhances imagery in the novel: "Her voice was clear as birdsong, ringing out in the steamy early morning sun. It echoed off the tin roof of the shelter we worked under. It spread out over the field in front of us, where her two oldest boys, Eli and Devil, worked with Henry Allen and the day laborers, and it traveled behind us down Deaf Mule Road. It made my heartache, though I couldn’t of said why. It was a
voice made for singing in church."
