Saint X

“[A] spectacle of color so sudden and intense it delivers a feeling like plunging a cube of ice in warm water and watching it shatter […]”

In this opening phrase of Chapter 1, the omniscient narrator describes the Caribbean archipelago from a bird’s-eye view, using striking sensory imagery. A description of color is transformed into an experience that engages touch, sight, and sound and elicits a feeling of shock.

“They have seen palm trees bent to kiss the sand. They have seen water as pale as glaciers and walked on sand as soft as cream. They have watched the sun transform, at the end of the day, into a giant orange yolk that breaks and spills itself across the sea. They have seen the night sky overcome with fine blue stars.”

In this description of what the privileged guests of Indigo Bay routinely experience on their vacations, metaphor, similes, and personification come together to paint visceral moments of beauty. This figurative language produces images that are immersive and sensory, leading to a feeling of gentle beauty.

“He notices now that the sand, which was immaculate yesterday, is strewn with mats of brown seaweed. Two men is overalls are raking the seaweed into piles. The tractor follows after them, scooping up the piles. Behind the tractor, a fourth man uses a push broom to smooth away the tread marks.”

In this passage, a contrast is drawn between the immaculate and beautiful beach of Indigo Bay and the work that is required to achieve that beauty. The sentences begin to feel like a list, and as they continue on, there is a feeling of endless work, which is at odds with the guests’ experience of leisure as they spend their days on this beach that has been cleaned for them.