Cedar
Imagery based on the sense of smell is important in a scene where “X” is recollecting a memory from when the body of a young boy was inhabited. “There were wood chips. I remember the area around the slide was covered with wood chips. I remember the cedar smell of them, even though I couldn’t possibly have smelled them from my perch.” That distinctive scent of cedar wood chips is immediately familiar to any reader who has ever smelled it. What is interesting in this usage of such imagery is the narrator admitting there could be no way to have actually smelled the wood from the position they occupied at the time. This may be a commentary on the particularly powerful sensory memory of the smell of cedar.
Racism
The simplest of imagery is engaged to comment upon racism. “It takes me about two periods in school to realize she’s one of the only black girls in the class — a point brought home in third-period history, when both the teacher and other students keep looking at her when they’re talking about Selma…they’re looking at Whitney while they talk about John Lewis.” The imagery in this case is the references to Selma and John Lewis. The city and the man are both very significant icons of the civil rights movement of the sixties. The narrator explicitly notes how all the white people in the classroom turn their attention to Whitney at the mention of these names in the expectation that she must be especially familiar or emotionally aware of them simply because of the striking visual contrast of the color of her skin.
Voice
The power of encouragement expressed by one person to another is expressed through imagery. “I have always kept going, even when the world gave me no encouragement, when the only voice I could hear was Yours, clear as glass and loud as thunder at some times, faint and unknowable at others.” This voice of encouragement need not be literal. The fact that the imagery is encased in metaphorical language makes that clear. This example underlines the power of hearing another’s voice inside one’s own mind. Sometimes those memories are loud and clear while at other times the voice is fuzzy enough to make it clear it is being imagined.
Perception
“A” enters an art gallery where emotions are used as imagery to describe colors that the artist has combined for the purpose of manipulating perception. “They are clouds, but they are solid. They are quiet, but they speak. They make no sense, and they make perfect sense.” This is imagery that describes color combinations in a manner that appeals not just to visual awareness but to hearing. This perceptual awareness acts as a commentary upon the ability of entities like “X” to shapeshift. The body is not just an external shape but a multifaceted work of art.
