The knife thrower's stage
During the knife thrower’s performance, the imagery foreshadows physical harm. For example, the “knife thrower bathed in blood-light,” and “there was the pale victim manacled to a wall,” which indicates anxiety; moreover, there is “in the shadows the dark woman; and in the glare of the lighting, in the silence, in the very rhythm of the evening, the promise of entering a dark dream.”
The moonlit kitchen
In “Clair de Lune,” the narrator paints an image of an enchanted world, where he feels “bound in the dark blue spell of the kitchen” with “the glittering silverware, moonlight on linoleum, silence.” At the same time, he adds an erotic element to it because he is the only boy among this group of girls in the kitchen, and he observes “the calves swinging back and forth.”
Sarabee's devil park
Sarabee’s devil park is described in graphic detail to create an image resembling the darkest desires of the audience, particularly sex and violence. For example, there is “a House of Horrors so frightening that visitors are reduced to fits of hysterical weeping, of fun-house mirrors that show back naked bodies in obscene postures. We hear of smoky sideshows in which the knife thrower pierces the wrists of the spangled woman on the turning wheel and the sword-swallower draws from his throat a sword red with blood. We hear of rides so violent that people are rendered unconscious or insane, of a House of Eros filled with cries of terror and ecstasy.”
The labyrinth
The narrator’s description of the labyrinth beneath his town is somewhat contradictory, as he highlights that the “pattern of twisting and interconnecting paths, on several levels, is far too complex for anyone to master, and in addition the pattern is always changing, for old passageways become suddenly or gradually impassable, and new wall-openings and small connecting corridors are continually being formed by the fall of rock fragments or the gradual loosening of rock along fault lines.” At the same time, however, the labyrinth is completely safe with lamps illuminating the darkness, orange safety cones, and exits that seem to appear whenever they are needed: ”There’s always the likelihood of a sudden arch in the wall, leading to a stairway going up.”
