In this scene, Kingsolver uses imagery to heighten the sensory and symbolic impact of the first summer rain:

At three o’clock in the afternoon all the cicadas stopped buzzing at once. They left such an emptiness in the air it hurt your ears. Around four o’clock we heard thunder. Mattie turned over the “Closed” sign in the window and said, “Come on. I want you to smell this.”

The description of the cicadas stopping “all at once” creates vivid auditory imagery, marking an abrupt and almost unnatural stillness. This silence feels charged, as though the natural world is collectively holding its breath. The “emptiness in the air” that “hurt your ears” personifies absence as something physically felt, transforming quiet into a tangible presence.

The moment functions as a symbolic threshold. In the local Indigenous tradition referenced elsewhere in the novel, the first summer rain marks the start of a new year, and the cessation of cicada song signals that this turning point has arrived. The stillness thus becomes a harbinger of change, foreshadowing the arrival of thunder and rain.

The sequence from sudden silence to the low rumble of thunder mirrors an emotional progression: anticipation gives way to release, just as drought yields to renewal. The act of Mattie turning the “Closed” sign and inviting the narrator to “smell this” grounds the moment in tactile and olfactory detail, further immersing the reader in the scene.

By anchoring symbolic renewal in precise sensory impressions—measured times, distinctive sounds, and the promise of a scent—Kingsolver ensures the event feels immediate and intimate. Nature’s cycles of hardship and relief become intertwined with the novel’s themes of resilience, transformation, and hope.