The Essay - In The Trenches

I liked In The Trenches by Charles Yale Harrison the best because of the brilliant imagery in the story. In particular, I like how he describes the rat and the explosions.

"It is as large as a tomcat. It is three feet away from my face and it looks steadily at me with its two staring, beady eyes. It is fat. Its long tapering tail curves away from its padded hindquarters. There is still a little light from the stars and this light shines faintly on its sleek skin. With a darting movement it disappears. I remember with a cold feeling that it was fat, and why."
This really forces the reader to imagine this giant, disgusting trench rat. The way the light from the stars shines faintly on its sleek skin gives the idea that this rat has almost a greasy texture.

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"I begin to cough. The smoke is thick. It rolls in heavy clouds over the trench, blurring the stabbing lights of the explosions."
This is a very effective way of showing what the smoke and explosions are like. It shows how heavy and dense the cloud of smoke was and makes the reader feel that familiar sensation of choking. The way he describes how the heavy clouds of smoke blur the stabbing lights of the explosion gives the reader an idea of how blinding the explosions were and how thick the clouds must have been to block it out.