How does Allan Gurganus use imagery in Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All?

Examples of Imagery:

"By then it was like getting your parrot going for company, you would say a key word and he'd chew it over, then you'd see it snag way in, and out whole favorites would crank - battle by battle - like rolls on some old player piano."

"Neighbors heard, walked, come rushing. Among them my own mother - who was not that yet - a thin strict half-spoilt heiress whose mission in life was to later whip me into ladyship and grammar and who failed at both, poor thing."

"How I'd had him in me while waiting under the Virginia sycamore - how the sadness I lived through whilst carrying the funny gum-baring child had nearly killed me during my gray and longest tiredness - but what pleasure his silly rust-red presence soon offered."