Landscape
"The spring rains woke the dormant tillers, and bright green shoots sprang from the moist earth and rose like sleepers stretching after a long nap. As spring gave way to summer, the bright green stalks darkened, became tan, turned golden brown. The days grew long and hot. Thick towers of swirling black clouds brought rain, and the brown stems glistened in the perpetual twilight that dwelled beneath the canopy. The wheat rose and the ripening heads bent in the prairie wind, a rippling curtain, an endless, undulating sea that stretched to the horizon." (The Wheat)
This imagery helps convey the setting and how the world has changed since the arrival of the Others. It talks about what the Others value most: our pristine and habitable earth.
Walking On the Outskirts of Urbana
"Clouds have rolled in from the north; the sun rises beneath the canopy and paints its underbelly a glistening maroon." (9)
Ringer describes the setting as she walks along the outskirts of Urbana, heading towards the caves. She tries to decide whether she should risk going along the highway, or go the safer route, around Urbana. The latter would prolong her journey, however. This imagery demonstrates how beautiful the world still is, how there is still some poetry in a sunset, even among the destruction and tense circumstances.
Nature
"The silver highway that faded into the black. The black seared by starlight unleashed. The leafless trees with arms upraised like thieves caught in the act. my brother's breath congealing in the frigid air as he slept. The window fogging as I breathed. And, beyond the frosty glass, beside the silver highway in the searing starlight, a tiny figure darting beneath the upraised arms of the trees." (50)
This imagery is described by Cassie, who is looking at the highway as she hides in the hotel with her brother. She captures the desolation and despair that she feels in her description of the landscape, in a case of landscape mirroring emotion.
Evan Meets Grace
"He found Grace first, standing beside the funnel cake trailer, a dripping wedge of watermelon in her hand. Blond hair that fell to the middle of her back, cool, nearly arctic features, especially the ice-blue eyes, and the cynical turn of her mouth, glistening with juice." (86)
This imagery allows the reader to picture Grace as she was when Evan first met her, when they were both around sixteen years old. It demonstrates the shocking beauty that she also possesses, making her like Evan in that regard. It also allows the reader to imagine the situation and circumstances under which Evan and she met - two innocent teenagers just realizing that they were different, that they were Others.
