One evening, during his relationship with Irene, Dexter ends up going to a University Club dance alone and running into Judy. The narrator uses imagery and a metaphor in this scene to capture Dexter’s experience of Judy’s beauty and allure:
The familiar voice at his elbow startled him. Judy Jones had left a man and crossed the room to him—Judy Jones, a slender enamelled doll in cloth of gold: gold in a band at her head, gold in two slipper points at her dress’s hem. The fragile glow of her face seemed to blossom as she smiled at him. A breeze of warmth and light blew through the room. His hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket tightened spasmodically. He was filled with a sudden excitement.
The imagery here includes descriptions like “The fragile glow of her face seemed to blossom as she smiled at him” (which readers can visualize) and “A breeze of warmth and light blew through the room” (which readers can feel). Readers can also feel Dexter’s hands “tighten[ing] spasmodically” as he is “filled with a sudden excitement.” All of this imagistic language helps readers understand how profoundly Judy’s presence affects Dexter.
The metaphor here—in which Judy is compared to “a slender enamelled doll in cloth of gold”—highlights Judy’s beauty in this scene. That said, the language is also somewhat objectifying, as it turns Judy into an inhuman doll that Dexter wants to possess rather than a living, breathing woman. This is somewhat ironic, as Judy has proven to Dexter time and time again that she has the power in their relationship, and yet he cannot let go of the illusion that she will one day be a woman he can tame and turn into his wife.
Near the end of the story, Dexter takes a moment to process the news Devlin shares with him—that Judy has lost her beauty and vigor and is now in an unhappy marriage. The narrator uses imagery in this moment to bring readers closer into the scene:
The dream was gone […] In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck’s soft down. And her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen in the morning. Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.
Here, the narrator encourages readers to experience Dexter’s nostalgia alongside him by visualizing “the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda” and “the dry sun and the gold color of [Judy’s] neck’s soft down.” The imagery also helps reader to feel Judy’s “mouth damp to his kisses” and smell “her freshness like new fine linen in the morning.”
All of this imagery makes clear to readers just how devastated Dexter is in this moment as he reckons with the fact that he will never be with Judy the way he once was. After all these sensory descriptions, the narrator states—channeling Dexter’s inner thoughts—“Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.” The exclamation point and dramatic language communicates how Dexter is, in this moment, letting go of the romantic memories and winter dreams about Judy that he held onto for decades.
