The Imagery of “Houses and Fire”
Amelia recollects, “My parents died that winter. Those cheap government houses were dry as tinder, heated by one central stove that threw an ember through the grate one night and burned our house to the ground. Those who saw it say it looked like a flare popping off. I hope so. I hope my parents slept right through it, that there was no terror or desperation for either of them. We kids were with my Uncle Jack and Aunt Elizabeth at a winter powwow that night. Standing beside my uncle’s truck the next day looking at the burnt and bubbled timbers piled atop each other.” The quality of housing is the prime trigger of the fires. Dryness makes it stress-free for the fire to spread speedily. Plainly, the wintry weather is not ample enough to impede the fire. Conceivably, if Amelia and her siblings had been present at their house, then they too would have perished like the parents in the fire.
The Imagery of a 'Rounder'
Amelia expounds, “Being a rounder’s just what it sounds like. You go around and around the same old vicious fucking circle until you’ve seen and done and survived everything. At first, it’s just life screwing with you. Nobody comes here by choice… But a rounder, well, a rounder is a special fucking breed. See, the street wears people, breaks them down, but a rounder wears the street.” 'Rounders' are resilient personalities whose endurance in the street is accredited to their hardiness. They are astonishingly self-sufficient for they audaciously defy all the life-threatening trials in the street. Accordingly, their incidence in the street is long-lasting.
