Winter
References to winter, snow and ice abound throughout the novel. Trees are always leafless and a contagion of emotional reactions described as “cold” permeate the narrative. This imagery synthesizes to convey not just a sense of waste and devastation, but to create an increasingly foreboding dread that eventually reveals itself as foreshadowing the tragic destiny of Clyde and those with whom he comes in contact. The opening line of the novel underscores the winter imagery with its ironic setting of dusk at summertime.
Walls
The opening lines of the novel also commence a pervasive reference to walls. Even the ceiling of the car in which tragic car crash takes place becomes a wall due to the vehicle being flipped on its side. The factory walls are juxtaposed with the prison walls to create a motif of recurring symbolic imprisonment for Clyde regardless of the actual external circumstances.
Birds
References to birds in general populate the novel in high volume. Women are referred to as birds and the sound of birds whistling or singing foreshadow the mocking cry of the weir-weir at the novel’s central dramatic moment. At the other end of the spectrum from that singular moment at which the bird imagery is most contemptuous in its presence is the symbolism of the name of the girl of Clyde’s dreams. Just like her avian name, Sondra Finchley is a vibrant creature whose fluttering presence in Clyde’s life is capable of at least temporarily pulling him out of his darkness and giving hope.
Mason's Disfigurement
If Orville Mason seems excessively and even zealously melodramatic in his pursuit of a guilty verdict and subsequent death sentence for Clyde, it may not be entirely related to his political ambitions. The use of imagery in the character of Mason is both literal and symbolic. He has literally suffered a disfigurement to this face resulting from a skating accident in his youth which has contributed to crusading sense of justice in Mason which may in fact be a perversion of his own psychology. Conditioned by circumstances to find attractive and wealthy men rivals perpetually winding up on the winning side any battle for the affection of girls and women, Mason’s almost psychotic prosecution of Clyde might well be read as a manifestation of a resentment that runs so deep he remains oblivious to the irony of believing Clyde is both attractive and privileged.
