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Idioms
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
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Children and Gardens:
At multiple points in Chapter 3, Huxley describes the playtime behavior of children in the dystopian society of the novel, utilizing pointed imagery. In the following passage, Huxley couples that imagery with oxymoron:
The tropical sunshine lay like warm honey on the naked bodies of children tumbling promiscuously among the hibiscus blossoms.
The imagery of these children playing erotic games without shame in their gardens calls to mind the state of prelapsarian (pre-Fall) Eden in the Bible. In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, before Eve is tempted by Satan, neither she nor Adam know shame. They are too engaged in "erotic play" in their garden, unperturbed by their own nakedness. It may be oxymoronic (and even disturbing) by readers' standards to consider a child capable of "tumbling promiscuously," since the carefree nature of "tumbling" doesn't align with the obvious adult connotations of promiscuity. But the sentiment expressed is consistent with a society where "everyone belongs to everyone else." Unfortunately, the happiness, contentedness, and subsequent lack of shame these children feel comes at a steep cost: they must be genetically engineered, from conception, to only feel those emotions, never any other ones. These children do not feel shame, yes, but they barely feel anything.
Related Themes:
Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Maggots:
John has an extremely disconcerting experience in the hospital while visiting his mother on her deathbed. Young Delta children are brought into the hospital during his visit as a part of their conditioning. They unsettle John with their uniformity and lack of personal boundaries, pestering him with questions about Linda. Huxley combines simile, extended metaphor, and imagery to describe this behavior in Chapter 14:
Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open. Squealing and chattering they entered. In a moment, it seemed, the ward was maggoty with them. They swarmed between the beds, clambered over, crawled under, peeped into the television boxes, made faces at the patients.
While Linda is suffering on her deathbed, these children view her only as a curiosity — an oddity, perhaps, to be consumed and digested. The scene's visual imagery—"Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open"—suggests a writing, grey mass of detritivores, operating with one mind and one goal. In their khaki pants, these children even have maggot-like coloring.
In Chapter 15, Huxley extends this figurative language to adult Deltas, the "twins," who similarly consume his "grief and repentance" following his mother's death:
Twins, twins… . Like maggots they had swarmed defilingly over the mystery of Linda’s death. Maggots again, but larger, full grown, they now crawled across his grief and his repentance. He halted and, with bewildered and horrified eyes, stared round him at the khaki mob.
This so-called civilization has erased any semblance of personal boundaries, to the point that its citizens are enabled to behave like thoughtless, animalistic opportunists, refusing to forgo their own pleasure or curiosity out of respect. The reporters in Chapter 18 behave similarly, swooping in like scavengers to sensationalize John's suffering and unusual behavior for their broadcast. The death of individuality in this society is also the death of solitude, and the imagery of death in these scenes affirms that.
Related Themes:
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Maggots:
John has an extremely disconcerting experience in the hospital while visiting his mother on her deathbed. Young Delta children are brought into the hospital during his visit as a part of their conditioning. They unsettle John with their uniformity and lack of personal boundaries, pestering him with questions about Linda. Huxley combines simile, extended metaphor, and imagery to describe this behavior in Chapter 14:
Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open. Squealing and chattering they entered. In a moment, it seemed, the ward was maggoty with them. They swarmed between the beds, clambered over, crawled under, peeped into the television boxes, made faces at the patients.
While Linda is suffering on her deathbed, these children view her only as a curiosity — an oddity, perhaps, to be consumed and digested. The scene's visual imagery—"Their uniform was khaki. All their mouths hung open"—suggests a writing, grey mass of detritivores, operating with one mind and one goal. In their khaki pants, these children even have maggot-like coloring.
In Chapter 15, Huxley extends this figurative language to adult Deltas, the "twins," who similarly consume his "grief and repentance" following his mother's death:
Twins, twins… . Like maggots they had swarmed defilingly over the mystery of Linda’s death. Maggots again, but larger, full grown, they now crawled across his grief and his repentance. He halted and, with bewildered and horrified eyes, stared round him at the khaki mob.
This so-called civilization has erased any semblance of personal boundaries, to the point that its citizens are enabled to behave like thoughtless, animalistic opportunists, refusing to forgo their own pleasure or curiosity out of respect. The reporters in Chapter 18 behave similarly, swooping in like scavengers to sensationalize John's suffering and unusual behavior for their broadcast. The death of individuality in this society is also the death of solitude, and the imagery of death in these scenes affirms that.
Related Themes:
