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Definition of Imagery
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines... read full definition
Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—Street Sounds and Sights:
After a few nights of eating—and reconnecting—by candlelight during the power outages on their block, Shoba and Shukumar decide to sit outside on their porch on a warm night. The narrator uses imagery to capture the sounds and sights of the married couple’s street, as seen in the following passage:
At the end of their street Shukumar heard sounds of a drill and the electricians shouting over it. He looked at the darkened facades of the houses lining the street. Candles glowed in the windows of one. In spite of the warmth, smoke rose from the chimney.
Here the narrator describes the “sounds of a drill and the electricians shouting over it” (helping readers to “hear” the scene), the “darkened facades” of most houses and “glow[ing]” candles in one (helping readers to “see” the scene), and the “warmth” of the night (helping readers to “feel” the scene).
All of these descriptions combine to create a complex portrait of Shoba and Shukumar’s street, as well as their relationship. The couple has had several nights of reconnecting in the dark, but it has also been six months since they have felt close to each other, given the loss of their stillborn child. Just as the street contains both positive elements (the warmth and the glowing candles) and negative elements (the chaos of the electricians and the dark houses), their relationship, in this moment, contains both hope and grief.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Shoba’s Appearance:
During the first night that the power goes out in the house, Shukumar notices Shoba’s appearance in the dark. The narrator uses imagery here to bring readers more closely into the scene:
The birthday candles had burned out, but he pictured her face clearly in the dark, the wide tilting eyes, the full grape-toned lips, the fall at age two from her high chair still visible as a comma on her chin. Each day, Shukumar noticed, her beauty, which had once overwhelmed him, seemed to fade. The cosmetics that had seemed superfluous were necessary now, not to improve her but to define her somehow.
The narrator uses imagery here when describing Shoba’s “wide tilting eyes,” “full grape-toned lips,” and “comma”-shaped scar on her chin. The description of Shoba’s beauty starting to “fade,” such that she requires makeup in order to be “defined,” also helps readers to visualize Shoba’s appearance.
It is notable that none of these descriptions are overtly positive. This is likely due to a combination of the fact that Shukumar (whose perspective the narrator is channeling here) feels alienated from his wife after the loss of their stillborn child and that Shoba’s grief and fatigue over this loss are starting to show on her face.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Dark and Snowy Night:
Near the beginning of the story, Shukumar cuts onions for dinner and the narrator describes the scene outside the window, using a simile and imagery in the process:
Through the window he saw the sky, like soft black pitch. Uneven banks of snow still lined the sidewalks, though it was warm enough for people to walk about without hats or gloves. Nearly three feet had fallen in the last storm, so that for a week people had to walk single file, in narrow trenches. For a week that was Shukumar’s excuse for not leaving the house. But now the trenches were widening, and water drained steadily into grates in the pavement.
This passage opens with a simile as the narrator describes the sky as being “like soft black pitch,” communicating to readers the darkness of the winter night (as well as the darkness of grief and loss Shukumar is experiencing). The imagery in this passage includes the descriptions of the surprisingly “warm” winter weather, the people walking “single file” through the “narrow trenches” of snow, and the melted snow water “drain[ing] steadily into grates in the pavement.”
In addition to appealing to readers’ senses (and thereby bringing them closer into the scene), these descriptions imply to readers that some sort of "melting" is going to be happening in the story. While the snow banks imply a harsh winter—or time of emotional withdrawal and distance between Shukumar and his wife Shoba—the melting suggests that they will finally experience a sort of emotional reckoning with the distance between them (caused by the loss, six months earlier, of their child).
Related Themes:
