How does Ian McEwan use imagery in The Comfort of Strangers?

The Comfort of Strangers is packed with descriptive imagery and metaphor. For instance, Caroline is first described as a pale, disembodied face...oval in shape. Such a portrayal prepares the reader for Caroline's weakness, as well as her eerie worship of her cruel husband. Looking at her sleeping lover, Mary compares his nostrils to commas. There is vitality and the sense of speeding toward an inevitable conclusion that makes Colin's death all the more jarring, but somehow expected.