The imagery of the noose
Execution is fate inescapable for the woman as her destiny is already sealed. Being a witch in these times invites nothing but trouble and as the noose is lowered onto her head, its appearance is nothing short of a crown: “The loose lies on the woman’s gray head like a crown.” The writer’s use of this simile enhances the development of a visual image of the same in the reader’s mind.
The opening of the noose
The looming death for the witch becomes all the more apparent when the situation escalates and the noose is brought a notch lower so that her head forces its way through it. The writer uses a simile to enhance the imagery of the woman’s head pushing open the noose. The writer notes: “Her head forces it open like an infant’s dilating the birth canal.”
The executioner’s hug
The imagery of the woman’s hanging is vividly described. Through the use of vivid and intense descriptions that enhance and evoke the creation of mental images in the reader’s mind, Stephenson is able to keep them entangled. As the woman makes to collapse, the executioner hugs her with an arm and an image of the same is evoked through a comparison to the posture of a dance-master: “The executioner hugs her with one arm, like a dancing-master, to keep her upright, and adjusts the knot while an official reads the death warrant.”
The bellow of the Irish sergeant
The lasting effect of the bellow produced by the Irish sergeant is brought out through the use of a simile. The writer notes: “An Irish sergeant bellows—bored but indignant—in a voice that carries forever on the wind, like the smell of smoke.” The simile also facilitates a conception of the suffocating nature of the roar, more like the smell of smoke.
The jostling ships
The behavior of nervous horses is well understood. In enhancing the reader’s understanding of the effect of gusts on the ships, the writer employs a simile in which he compares the ship’s jostling to nervous horses after hearing distant guns. In this way, imagery is enhanced: “Gusts make the anchored ships start and jostle like nervous horses hearing distant guns.”
