Zoë's destroyed stuffed-animal collection
In Chapter 11, Enzo chews up all of Zoë's stuffed animals, and when Denny returns home, he forces Enzo to look at the mess he has created. The scene of the destroyed toys is described with the kind of language that we would expect to describe a massacre of actual living things. The word "carnage" is used, which literally refers to flesh. The word "eviscerated," too, refers to viscera, which are organs and the insides of a body. Of course, we know that it's only stuffing scattered around the room, but the diction makes the image more vivid and painful, because it suggests the destruction of real flesh.
Eve compares herself to a Christmas Tree
In Chapter 23, Eve compares herself to a Christmas tree. At this point in the novel, she has been diagnosed with brain cancer, and she spends most of her time in a hospital bed in the middle of her parents' living room. Her comparison of herself to a Christmas tree is extremely evocative of her placement in the house. She is exposed, in the middle of a main thoroughfare of the home, but rendered completely immobile. The Christmas tree image also captures the idea that people are surrounding her, engulfing her in their company.
Denny's encounter with Annika three years later
Denny's encounter with Annika after years of fighting two legal battles, both made possible by her actions, contains strong imagery that suggests the passage of time and Annika's transition to being an adult. She is positioned in the trendy part of town at night, at a sidewalk table smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee with her friend. Both the cigarette and the coffee establish that she has adult habits and also contributes to the idea that she is carefree while Denny is literally fighting for his life. She takes up vices like smoking and drinks coffee late at night because she is young and has her life ahead of her.
Enzo hunts and eats a squirrel
In Chapter 28, after Enzo learns that Eve has died the night before, he runs away from Denny and stalks and kills a squirrel. The language emphasizes the wildness of Enzo's actions and violently describes how Enzo dismantles the animal's body. Stein appeals to the reader's senses by describing how the squirrel's bones break and how its skin rips.
