What word or phrase from the passage signals a contrasting thought

What does the simile add to the passage

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, and bathed rose petal sweet, and drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, and white shoes on her feet. which literary technique does the stanza demonstrat

Read the excerpt from flannery o'connor's "the life you save may be your own although the old woman lived in this desolate spot with only her daughter and she had never seen mr. shiftlet before, she could tell, even from a distance, that he was a tramp and no one to be afraid of. his left coat sleeve was folded up to show there was only half an arm in it and his gaunt figure listed slightly. which phrase connects these characters to the southern gothic genre? half an arm she had never seen his left coat sleeve folded up