Lester’s Cabin
When the cabin is first introduced, the chapter is distinguished by descriptions of weeds and pests. Describing the cabin as being infested by wasps, snakes, and the dung of rodents contributes to the feeling of disgust and degradation. The use of the color black throughout the description, to describe burning paper, blackberries, dark night, a snake, and cold water, gives the scene a grim and cold mood. The imagery gives the reader the impression of Lester’s isolation and depravity.
The flood
When Sevier County is flooded, the imagery used likens it to the Biblical flood. The characters jokingly ask if there is a man with a beard building a boat nearby, and one says that it is a judgement of sins. By using the imagery of the flood, it reveals the theme of repenting for sins. The Biblical imagery likens Lester’s sins to those of humanity, and frames the flooding of the town as a conclusion to his crimes.
The cave
The contrast between dark and light is used heavily when describing the cave, through the imagery of the dulling flashlight and the blackness of the walls. Sentences like “he thought he saw a light. He made his way toward it in darkness lest it be the lights of his enemies but he found nothing,” use imagery to frame the scene in a light at the end of the tunnel way. The darkness represents Lester’s fear and depravity, which he is lost in, and when he finally finds daylight it is like a new life opening up for him.
Grotesque Imagery
The novel uses images of the grotesque to highlight the concept of evil in what could otherwise be everyday activities. When Lester goes to visit a friend, their squatting posture is described as “constipated gargoyles.” Later in the book, the disabled child is described as a monstrous creature using grotesque imagery. When Lester is trapped in the cave, vivid imagery is used to describe his fears and personify the evil he views inside himself. He hears mice in the dark, and thinks that “perhaps they’d nest in his skull, spawn their tiny bald and mewling whelps in the lobed caverns where his brains had been” (189). This imagery is more potent than just describing Lester as fearful; it draws parallels to the imagery of pests from earlier in the book and gives the reader the impression of visceral fear.
