Hang Wood
Hang Wood is a typical forest setting which surrounds an ancestral home. Except that it may not be entirely typically or completely what it at first seems. Imagery is used to infuse the woods with a feeling of something magical about the place:
“He liked it here. He had never been anywhere like it, and it was not remotely what he had expected. He liked the smell, and the sense of being completely hidden. Everything around him seemed innocent, and he could see for some way ahead, it was all quite all right. The sun made even the dense holly and hawthorn bushes on the edge of the clearing look harmless.”
Mr. Hooper
Mr. Hooper is characterized quite early on—by Mr. Hooper. The imagery he uses as self-description is an effective way of telling more about the man than the description itself. This might create a slightly different expectation of the character were it to come courtesy of someone other than his own thoughts:
“For he knew himself to be an ineffectual man, without any strength or imposing qualities, a man who was liked and humored but little regarded, a man who had failed - but not dramatically, as one falling from a great height, who attracts attention. He was a dull man, a man who got by.”
Moths
Imagery related to moths appear over and over again throughout the novel. While the specific symbolism can shift from one appearance to another, collectively they are presented as imagery which always brings to mind the obsessive desire to control nature. Charles Kingshaw finds the extensive moth collection terrifying for precisely the same reason that Edmund Hooper finds it fascinating: Hooper aches to exercise control while Kingshaw has no control over his fears.
Evil Edmund
Little question exists among readers of this novel that Edmund not just a particularly bad little seed, but pure evil. That near-universal awareness does arrive courtesy of the author telling readers this, but rather through imagery showing it. It begins subtly enough that one might, for a good chunk of the book, claim to the suspicion that he is merely a naughty lad:
“There was a moment when they both stood, quite still, waiting. Then, Hooper whipped around and pushed past Kingshaw without warning, he was out of the door, turning the key sharply in the lock. After a moment, his footsteps went away down the hall. A door closed somewhere.”
