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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—Milan in Fall:
When setting the scene near the beginning of the story, the narrator uses imagery, as seen in the following passage:
There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains.
Here, Hemingway brings readers more closely into the scene by describing Milan’s city center in detail, engaging readers’ senses in the process. Not only can readers picture the “snow powdered in the fur of the foxes” and the “small birds [blowing] in the wind,” but they can feel the “stiff[ness] and heavi[ness]” of the deer and the cold wind that “came down from the mountains.”
All of these descriptions combine to help readers viscerally experience the cold weather (contributing to the “cold,” unfeeling mood of the story) and the helplessness of the animals, who function as a subtle stand-in for the wounded and helpless soldiers in the story who were similarly struck down in their prime. Though the soldiers are not dead, they are young men who appear lifeless and beaten down—Hemingway’s way of hinting at the harmful impacts of war.
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Explanation and Analysis—Soldiers Walking Together:
When the narrator describes the experience of walking through Milan with a small group of Italian soldiers, he uses imagery to capture a sense of camaraderie, as seen in the following passage:
[A]s we walked to the Cova through the tough part of town, walking in the dark, with light and singing coming out of the wine-shops, and sometimes having to walk into the street when the men and women would crowd together on the sidewalk so that we would have had to jostle them to get by, we felt held together by there being something that had happened that they, the people who disliked us, did not understand.
In this passage, Hemingway uses imagery to help readers understand the sense of togetherness that the narrator feels while out with his fellow soldiers. He does this by engaging readers’ sense of sight (by describing how the solders walked together in the dark with bits of light “coming out of the wine-shops”), hearing (by noting that singing was coming out of the shops as well), and touch (by describing how the soldiers had to “jostle” the crowds of people to get by).
Through these various obstacles, the men stay together as a group, giving them all a sense of being “held together” in the face of people who judge them for participating in the war effort. Through this rare moment of camaraderie and closeness, Hemingway suggests that, while war has taken so much from these men, and while it will take them a long time to heal, they at least have each other.
Related Themes:
