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Hyperbole
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
1. Darl
Explanation and Analysis—Golden Cash:
Darl uses imagery in Chapter 1 to highlight Cash's good intentions building his mother's coffin:
Standing in a litter of chips, he is fitting two of the boards together. Between the shadow spaces they are yellow as gold, like soft gold, bearing on their flanks in smooth undulations the marks of the adze blade: a good carpenter, Cash is.
The spaces between the boards Cash is using to build the coffin are described as "soft gold" with "smooth undulations" where Cash has cut them. The visual imagery gives the impression that the coffin is beautiful and luxurious—or, at the very least, that it is skillfully and carefully crafted. The description makes it clear that, Darl's eyes, Cash is something of a noble or valiant figure. This contrasts with Jewel's assessment in Chapter 4, where he takes on a more cynical perspective on Cash's coffin building. Darl's use of visual imagery helps to clarify the relationship between the two brothers, demonstrating that Darl sees Cash in a positive light. This is also the reader's first impression of Cash, to which all other accounts are compared. From the beginning, the reader is predisposed to see Cash favorably.
Like Cash himself, though, Darl shows through this passage that he sees Cash for actions and self-sacrifice rather than any of his innate qualities or personhood: he notes nothing about Cash's appearance, hobbies, or flaws, and instead describes him as "a good carpenter." At this point, the reader knows very little about Cash other than his carpentry skills—they, too, come to value Cash for the same reasons Darl and the other Bundrens do. As is always the case for the family narrators, very little is said explicitly, so Darl's imagery is the first window readers have into the complex family web.
Related Themes:
10. Darl
Explanation and Analysis—Darl's Death Vision:
In Chapter 10, Darl uses visual and olfactory imagery to make a clairvoyant prediction about the coming days, hinting toward difficult times are ahead:
The sun, an hour above the horizon, is poised like a bloody egg upon a crest of thunderheads; the light has turned copper: in the eye portentous, in the nose sulphurous, smelling of lightning.
This passage introduces Darl's psychic ability: here, he correctly prophesies that Addie will die shortly. The strange and graphic language marks this passage as unique in the chapter, somehow separate from the present reality. Usually, the writing in As I Lay Dying is either terse or rambling without direction, but here, readers have a vivid and detailed understanding of exactly what Darl sees. This gives the vision a vivid and supernatural aura. Importantly, the imagery used is unsettling and unpleasant: the sun is described as a "bloody egg" and the smell of lightning is "sulfurous," like a rotten egg. These sensory descriptions subtly connote bodily decay or expiration, which makes Addie's death seem all the more imminent and ominous.
Darl's vision is also reminiscent of Nat Turner’s prophecy before his rebellion (where the enslaved man similarly saw writing in blood and took the sun's partial eclipse as a sign). This connection makes the small town family drama seem more cosmic and part of an established Southern tradition. Even at the story's most strange and esoteric, it still asserts itself as paradigmatic of the past and future South, making the supernatural seem more real and the real more supernatural.
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52. Darl
Explanation and Analysis—Summarizing Suffering:
Darl uses imagery in Chapter 52 to describe the scene as the Bundren finally makes their way to Jefferson:
“Is that it, Darl?” Vardaman says. “Is that Jefferson?” He too has lost flesh; like ours, his face has an expression strained, dreamy, and gaunt.
“Yes,” I say. He lifts his head and looks at the sky. High against it they hang in narrowing circles, like the smoke, with an outward semblance of form and purpose, but with no inference of motion, progress or retrograde. We mount the wagon again where Cash lies on the box, the jagged shards of cement cracked about his leg. The shabby mules droop rattling and clanking down the hill.
Here, Darl highlights the suffering of the two brothers using imagery. Cash’s trouble has come from the journey (Darl describes his haphazard cast as "jagged shards of cement"), but Vardaman’s seems more base: he is afflicted by the same “lost flesh” as the rest of the family, and his "strained, dreamy, and gaunt" face reflects this. Darl seems to believe that the family’s misfortunes are connected and have something to do with their blood.
Moreover, the visual description of the clouds hanging "like the smoke, with an outward semblance of form and purpose, but with no inference of [...] progress" is symbolic of the Bundren family itself: they are purposeful and determined yet stagnant and downtrodden. Yet Cash also takes care to note that despite these melancholic moments, the family caravan marches on all the same, the “mules rattling and clanking down the hill.” From this passage, it seems that the Bundren family is unable to diverge from their fated and tragic path.
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