Kathleen Hanna
The punk rock of Bikini Kill is especially significant to the development of the author. She uses imagery to describe the experience of listening to the band's iconic singer, Kathleen Hann. "To hear her singsong voice go into a shrieking, guttural scream felt like being in the presence of power, which I wanted so badly to possess." This use of imagery may not completely convey the experience of hearing the force of nature that is Hanna's voice, but it may not need to. The author's precise description of the powerful sound she heard when listening to the band is fully conveyed through descriptive words that make it manifest that Hanna's delivery of lyrics is something more influential than mere singing.
Assault
The memoir is about dealing with trauma long after the stimulating event occurs. The first memory related by the author of this event very effectively engages imagery. "As the credits to Disney’s The Little Mermaid flickered against the yellowing walls of his bedroom, he stumbled in from the bar. The smell of beer on a lover’s breath still bothers me." The reference to the animated movie about a young mermaid with hair like red paint paradoxically creates an instant feeling of dread as it is connected to the image of a drunken adult male, trusted as family, intruding into innocence. One of the most powerful instances of imagery is the sensory detail of the foul odor of beer becomes impossible for the author to disconnect from her memory.
Ancestral Racism
The broader historical trauma of the treatment of indigenous women by white male invaders of their homeland permeates the secondary biography of an ancestor of the author. "When her husband’s house was completed, Comptia Koholowish moved into her own new dwelling. It was a shed with four walls and a dirt floor on the edge of the property line." The imagery here is simply written but quite complex in its larger implication. The white sailor who has married the indigenous woman with the darker skin not only steals her allotment of the land but lives in relative luxury compared to her own status not much above slavery. The smallness, the dirtiness, and the placement of this "home" allow this imagery to also become a commentary on the conditions of reservations across the country.
Red Paint
The title of the book references the imagery which most often recurs throughout the text. When the author, as a young girl, asks what red paint signifies, she is told it is for the healers. Later, in her adult narration, the author broadens the meaning of this imagery. The recurring reference to the title of the book becomes imagery that signifies the very heritage of her ancestry. Across the breadth of the book, red paint becomes imagery intended to represent the historical trauma but also the strength to not allow those traumatic experiences to create victimization.
