Visual And Tactile Imagery In Last Day On Mars

This passage in Last Day on Mars has very powerful imagery. This is describing the moment Mars is swallowed by the expanding Sun from the perspective of one of Mars’ inhabitants. The imagery in this paragraph is specifically visual and tactile imagery. It is visual imagery because of the descriptions of Mars exploding, which make readers imagine that scene vividly. It is tactile imagery because of the description of feeling warm, which has to do with touch. This imagery evokes emotions like fear and terror, as the Sun destroying planets is a very real and terrifying possibility for humanity. The words he uses, such as boil and buckled, are words with a negative connotation for us, as they usually have to do with pain and destruction. These
words were probably chosen to make readers fearful. This paragraph also conjures sorrow in the reader. Our future might involve this someday, as the Sun is predicted to expand. It causes sadness that our legacy on Earth will be destroyed and our civilization forgotten. The last emotion that I think this description incites is pity. Readers will feel pity for the microbes that never got to know their world and will be killed when they are innocent. The words bright, glow, and warm make people pity them especially because the words bring something positive to something terrible, making readers pity that they were surrounded by something comforting the moment they died and would never know what happened. The imagery in this paragraph is very powerful, helping you to be connected with the story.