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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
Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—The Fire:
When describing when the family's old house burned down many years ago, Mama uses imagery:
How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them.
This passage is an example of imagery because it engages several different senses at once—readers can “hear the flames” alongside Mama, as well as “feel Maggie’s arms sticking to [her]” and visualize the flames reflecting in Maggie’s eyes as “her dress [fell] off her in little black papery flakes.” All of these descriptions combine to help bring readers more fully into this memory with Mama and to understand how deeply traumatic it was for her and for Maggie. Later on in the paragraph in which this passage appears, Mama describes how Dee watched the fire so excitedly that Mama wanted to ask her, “Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes?”
The juxtaposition between the terror and trauma that Mama and Maggie experience during the fire (as communicated through the imagery) and the joy that Dee experiences communicates to readers the divide between the family members. While Mama and Maggie feel a sense of loss as their small house and few possessions are destroyed, Dee doesn’t, likely because she was ashamed of their poverty and wanted to escape from it (as she ultimately goes on to do by moving away from home).
Related Themes:
