How does George Lamming use imagery in In the Castle of My Skin?

Imagery:

All the voices were hushed, the puddles deserted, the gurgle of the wrestling flood submerged.

The only certainty these islands inherit was that sailor’s mistake, and it’s gone on and on from father to son ‘mongst the rich and the poor: in Slime and Creighton, landlord and politician, those who play at ruling and those at being ruled, and those who are neither one nor the other: the mob that is always good but will never understand the face of the devil nor the equal smile of the blue sea The fate of these islands I do not know, but man must live like a god or a dog, or be a stone that is neither dead nor alive, a pool no wind will ever wrinkle.