How does Harlan Ellison use imagery in A Boy and His Dog?

Ellison's descriptions of the physical landscape create a gloomy picture of post-World War III Earth. Vic mentions the "crumbled remains of the curb," the "melted stub of a lamppost," the "weed-overgrown craters," and the "empty corpses of blasted buildings," to describe his surroundings. Inside the YMCA, Vic notices a stench coming from a pile of dead bodies that were never buried after the war.