The imagery of a spinster
The image of a spinster is employed to describe Klara's character. She is like an old lady who is sad and alone, having lived a life of loneliness, because she wasn't able to connect with others when her boyfriend was killed at war. She literally sits there in her quiet house, all day, alone, sewing, thinking, trying to find something to be hopeful about. Then, one day, her brother comes home and takes her outside. Her mourning is over when she decides to go on her adventure to France.
The imagery of warfare and trenches
The war was nasty, and when we think of WWI today, we often remember the metal tanks and the machine guns and heavy artillery—but we forget that it was brand new technology back then. When people thought of war, they thought of horseback warfare with swords and muskets. That's why the trenches posed unsolvable puzzles to both sides. This imagery is used in Tilman's story, having been deployed to a war with new weaponry the world could never have imagined, and in Eamons story, which ends in violent death.
The imagery of loneliness and shame
Loneliness is depicted in Klara's story as mentioned above, but also, Tilman's story contains the same loneliness and confusion. He wanders around as a drifter, living with a man who is ashamed and ostracized from community because he murdered someone—his own brother. Yet, Tilman and he are good, safe company to each other. What do we learn from that imagery? That Tilman is ashamed of something, and his running away from home was likely him running away from something else—the shame of his family.
The imagery of memorial
The final imagery in the novel is ultimately the most important. Klara suffers from the loss of her loved one in WWI, and Tilman lives with nightmarish PTSD, having sustained an injury in trench combat. So what does the memorial represent? It represents the way they were healed, by choosing to intentionally remember that suffering, and to honor it with a reminder. What that means to the reader is a little different than what it means to the character—to us, it is like a challenge. Do we remember their suffering?
