The baby
The narrator's description of a sepia photo on the wall clearly shows how she looked when she was a baby. The narrator says, "A fat baby with a full, pouty lower lip and brown hair pulled up into a big curl sits half-naked on a cushion in the middle of a curved table." The imagery is significant because it shows that despite being brought up in a low-income family, the narrator was a healthy baby and her parents provided the best they could. In a series of photos, the narrator shows the reader how she grew into a promising young woman.
The voices
The situation after the war is described using imagery. The narrator says, "The guests' voices flowed together to compose the great narrative of collective events, which we came to believe we too had witnessed. They never grew tired of talking about the winter of 42, the bone-chilling cold, the hunger and rutabagas, the food provisions and tobacco vouchers, the bombardments." The imagery shows how the parents struggled to put food on the table. Consequently, the impact of the war was devastating, and the narrator hopes nothing like that should ever occur in modern times.
The ruins of war
There is nothing as bad as losing everything you have invested in for centuries because of war. The narrator recounts the harsh reality after the war destroyed everything in her town. The narrator says, "All that remained of the flamboyant epic were the gray and silent ruins of block houses carved into cliff sides, and heaps of rubble in the towns as far as the eye could see. Rusty objects, twisted bedframes loomed out of the debris.” The imagery is significant because it cautions readers that war leaves behind disheartening images. Therefore, the current circumstances and challenges the people in her town are going through are due to their loss during the war.
