Lomax goes on to describe the horrible neglect that prisoners of Outram road were experiencing. ‘This was a place in which the living were turned into ghosts, starved, diseased creatures wasted down to their skeletal outlines’. Like the first quote this is Lomax being very graphic, morbid about what he has witnessed. Another use of simile, there is a noticeable semantic field here. Words like ‘ghost’, ‘diseased’ and ‘skeletal’ conjure up a picture of death and something worse living on the fringes of death. This is mostly from the viewpoint of Lomax now, as an old man who can look back and comment on it with toned down emotion and consideration.
Moving on to the use of adjectives which Lomax has liberally used throughout the first paragraph we get the impression that there was no pre meditated violence or planned torture, it was just neglect of the most damaging kind. ‘some of his colleagues were bored, slovenly and brutal’. Both ‘bored’ and ‘slovenly’ are adjectives that describe well the casual attitude of the guards. I would imagine that the attitudes of these guards were strongly disliked by Lomax’ morals. He doesn’t believe in laziness, to him every thing must have a purpose and he likes to carefully consider and plan any thing he does. I cannot imagine that this lax, thoughtless behaviour impressed him much.
Further on in the second paragraph there is more evidence of imagery, and how Lomax uses it to good effect. ‘cradling those frail creatures of skin and bone in his own emaciated arms’. This comes across strongly in many ways; firstly he is implying that these ‘creatures’ have taken on a kind of sub human form through their illness and horrific neglect and deprivation. Secondly the man looking after them is also rather ‘emaciated’. A rather juxtaposed statement as the carer is almost as weak and sick as whom he is caring for. The descriptive imagery here allows Lomax to build up a sense of how awful Outram Gail is and the obvious next step is to escape.
Lomax describes next how he was given a haircut after about one month or so in Outram. ‘I could feel the cold metal bumping on my exposed skull, which felt as fragile as an egg’. Again a simile, ‘fragile as an egg’. This sums up Lomax’ overall state, rather fragile and vulnerable. The effect of using an egg to compare to his head is very good, as it’s immediately obvious that an egg is very weak. Imagery that easily relates to known objects enables Lomax to use a wider more interesting use of lexis.
Finally Lomax describes really what was to be the beginning of the end. Lomax noticed one day that Mac who was a solidly built man had become so thin ‘his anus stuck out like a short pipe’. A simile, which is shockingly descriptive and again makes use of imagery that stands out to the reader.
Overall the combination of simile’s, adjectives and imagery provide this passage from the book with definition and substance which is only achievable through careful use of lexis combined and Lomax’ ‘matter of fact’ style of writing.
