Love at First Sight
The most consistent and effective use of imagery in the story is that engaged by the author to subtly underline his satire of literary conventions. One of these conventions is the romantic trope of love at first sight and the story becomes almost a parody of this concept through a brash delineation of imagery in which the first meeting of the two protagonist which form the romantic couple is described, in its entirety, thusly:
They had met at a picnic. As Egbert rested for a moment from the task of trying to dredge the sand from a plateful of chicken salad, his eyes had fallen on a divine girl squashing a wasp with a teaspoon.
The satirical treatment of this trope is further subverted by the fact
Ten minutes later he had reached the conclusion that life without Evangeline Pembury would be a blank.
Pop Goes the Question
Having decided that life without Evangeline is a blank, the stage is set for the romantic ritual in fiction: a question that the man wants to ask. The imagery here all leads to the expectation that this question will not be a surprise. It is a “night in June” as the girl is “looking out across the moonlit water.” The man “cleared his throat” while feeling “strangely breathless.” He is “afraid” because “her answer meant so much to him” and finally he reaches the point “as they stood together in the moonlight” that he can finally pop the question:
“Have you ever written a novel?”
After a steady buildup of practically every cliché associated with a proposal, the author subverts it without pity or apology in a yet another demonstration of satirizing literary expectations.
This Ain't No Tragedy
The conventions of ancient tragedy which mandates that the recreation of reality which aligns too closely with actual reality must take place off-stage so as not to inflame the emotions of the audience is directly addressed through an ironic inversion of this concept in the image of an intrusive narrator breaking through the wall of realism…like a Greek chorus:
“In the old Greek tragedies it was a recognized rule that any episode likely to excite the pity and terror of the audience to too great an extent must be enacted behind the scenes. Strictly speaking, therefore, this scene should be omitted. But the modern public can stand more than the ancient Greeks, so it had better remain on the records.”
Sentimental Melodrama
Ultimately, the story itself breaks apart and becomes itself a meta-example of exactly the type of sentimental melodramatic writing that drove its protagonist into a state of ill-health. Once Evangeline reaches the point where her undying love for Egbert explodes in a confession of hatred for the very act of writing, the imagery used by the author of “Best Seller” has become itself an example of the worst kind of melodramatic excesses: Evangline cries “a Niagara of tears” as she "flung herself on the sofa” and literally begins “chewing the cushion in an ecstasy of grief.”
To which Egbert responds:
“He dived for the sofa. He clasped her hand. He stroked her hair. He squeezed her waist. He patted her shoulder. He massaged her spine.”
