Kat Godwin
Imagery is often engaged for character description, but when it comes to other girls, the young female narrator just can't seem to stop herself from getting a little snarky. For instance, Kat Godwin "was a Listener like me, but that was about all we had in common. She was blonde, slim and pouty, which would have given me three good reasons to dislike her even if she’d been a sweet lass who spent her free time tending poorly hedgehogs." The language used to describe Kat could quite clearly be incredibly positive. That it becomes a negative perception says as much about Lucy, the narrator, as it does Kat.
Skull in a Jar
One of the most enjoyable characters—and certainly one of the most memorable—is a skull in a jar most often referred to as the skull in a jar. "The skull was yellowish-brown and battered, but otherwise unexceptional. It was adult size, but whether a man’s or a woman’s we could not tell...Most of the time it manifested as a murky greenish plasm that drifted disconsolately behind the glass." Considering that the skull will become such a significant character throughout the series, it is important for the introductory imagery to stick with readers. This description succeeds in fomenting an air of repugnant ambiguity about the skull which the series will continue to build upon.
Bickerstaff
A novel of horror about a psychic research and control agency—ghostbusters, basically—has to introduce a fair share of ghastliness. For instance, a figure named Bickerstaff is described as "a blackened, shrunken thing in ragged robe and moldy suit. One long bony arm splayed out at an unnatural angle, as if snapped at the elbow; the other lay palm up, as if reaching for something that had gone. Fronds of white hair stretched like the legs of drowned spiders around the naked skull." The focus on bodily imagery which is recognizable, but unquestionably macabre, endows the scene with just enough gruesomeness to make the point without grossing anyone out. The addition of spiders at the end speaks to the nearly universal incidence of arachnophobia.
Malaise
Lucy explains that four signs exist foretelling the manifestation of a spectral entity. Of them all, the stealthiest is malaise. "It’s a feeling of soul-sapping heaviness and melancholy that can steal up on you so slowly you never notice it – until you have a ghost creeping towards you and you realize you haven’t the willpower to run or raise your sword." The use of imagery in this example is somewhat different from that used elsewhere. This is because imagery alone cannot define malaise. A vague feeling must be instilled in the reader through reminders of emotional states already experienced but not sharply defined.
