How does Larry McMurtry use imagery in The Last Picture Show?

Imagery:

"... with nobody at all on the road or in the cab Sonny sometimes got the funny feeling that he was driving the old truck around and around in a completely empty place."

"Loneliness is like ice. After you've been lonely long enough you don't even realize you're cold, but you are. It's like I was a refrigerator that had never been defrosted at all - never. All these years the ice has just been getting thicker. You can't melt all that ice in a few days, I don't care how good a man you are."