Ordinariness of the Basement, Chapter Four
"We stepped into an ordinary basement; an old-style laundry tub, a washing machine, a wooden saw-horse, stacked newspapers and against one wall, on the floor, some cardboard cartons and several used paint cans."
Here, the author creates an image of a basement that is completely ordinary, and much like the basement in every home in America. It is filled with the stuff of everyday chores such as the washing machine, and remains of jobs long since finished. The image cleverly juxtaposes the ordinary, run of the mill basement with the completely out-of-the-ordinary event that is occurring there. It also paints an image of a room that is a little dusty and would likely have detritus from all of the jobs done in it, like lint or sawdust, and this explains why the gray fluff that characterises the pods might have initially gone unnoticed or unremarked upon.
The "Blank" Jack, Chapter Four
"Lying on the green felt, on its back, was the naked body of a man. It was maybe five feet ten inches tall - it isn't too easy to judge heights looking down on a body that way. He was white, the skin very pale in the brilliant shadowless light, and at one and the same time it looked unreal and theatrical and yet it was intensely, overly real. The body was slim, maybe 140 pounds, but well-nourished and well-muscled. I couldn't judge age except that he wasn't old. The eyes were open, staring directly into the overhead light on a way that made your eyes smart. They were blue and very clear. There was no wound visible and no other cause of death."
This is an extremely detailed image of the body on Jack's billiard table and describes perfectly both the wan figure and the extreme colors of the different lights shining on him. The image painted for the reader is less image painted by an author and more medical examiner's post mortem report as everything about the man is detailed in an anatomical way rather than a visual one. The overwhelming picture is of a colorless figure whose blue eyes are the only deviation from the colorlessness. The author paints an image of a man with no identifying features but this is also what makes him stand out of the ordinary too.
Changing Light, Chapter Seven
"I parked outside the open garage and in just the time it had taken to drive up here from my house, the sky had definitely lightened; all around us now we could see the black outlines of trees against the whitening light. We got out and I could see the first grayed beginnings of color in the weeds and bushes. The lights of the house were beginning to go weak and orange in the wan light of first dawn."
In this description of the valley the author uses descriptions of the changing light patterns to paint a picture of the physical surroundings. The weeds do not stand out as weeds but as patches of color diffused from the morning sky. The trees are not pictured in their own right but as outlines that look like they have been drawn on the dawn sky that is still weak and white. The color gradually builds from white to gray to orange and portrays with beauty the first minutes of the dawn.
Decaying of Throckmorton Street, Chapter Nine
"The look of Throckmorton Street depressed me. It seemed littered and shabby in the morning sun; a city trash basket stood heaped and unemployed from the day before, the globe of an overhead light was broken, and a few doors from the building where my office was, a shop stood empty. The windows were whitened and a clumsily painted FOR RENT sign stood leaning against the glass. It did not say where to apply and I had the feeling no one cared whether the store was ever rented again. A smashed wine bottle lay in the entranceway of my building and the brass nameplate set in the grey stone of the building was mottled and unpolished. All up and down the street as I stopped for a moment to look, not a soul was washing down a store window as the shop owners usually were of a morning, and the street seemed oddly deserted."
In this paragraph the author is describing a town that is starting to become neglected and run down and by adding Miles' observations about what is no longer happening on the street the author adds to this picture of neglect by enabling the reader to picture what used to happen and to picture the town in its better days. Once again descriptions of the light are used to act as the color in the town rather than describing the colors themselves. In this passage, Miles is realizing for the first time that the town is becoming run down and that its vibrancy is dying simultaneously with the arrival of the pods and the snatched away people. This imagery continues through subsequent chapters as the community neglect becomes drastically worse.
Pods Leaving, Chapter Twenty
Images of light are utilized again to describe to appearance of the pods burning and going back into space. Images of intense color and intense heat are once again used together to portray the dramatic nature of what is taking place:
" The hear grew and multiplied on itself, the flames began to sound - a liquid crackle - and they reddened and shot suddenly high. The black smoke began to roll. Standing there we followed the line of flame with our eyes, watched it climbing in height, running down that field in parallel lines, shooting down connecting ditches with a subdued roaring sound, and the black silhouettes of the pods were suddenly sharp against the smoky red flame."
To intensify the drama of the images, the author brings multiple senses into play as the sound, smell and appearance of the flames are all described simultaneously almost fooling the reader into believing they can smell the burning as well. The sounds of the fire are alliterative and use heavy consonants emphasizing the sharp noises and the build up of light and color intensifies the description of individual flames rather than one big fire.By using Miles to narrate the images in real time the author enables the reader to feel as though they are watching it with him instead of hearing about it retrespectively.
