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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 2
Explanation and Analysis—Great Beard of Flame:
In chapter two, the boys successfully make a fire for the first time, and several literary devices are used to describe it:
The pile was so rotten, and now so tinder-dry, that whole limbs yielded passionately to the yellow flames that poured upwards and shook a great beard of flame twenty feet in the air. For yards round the fire the heat was like a blow, and the breeze was a river of sparks. Trunks crumbled to white dust.
The wood "yielded passionately" as if it enjoys being burned up. In this moment, nature works with the boys, and personifying the wood in this way makes it seem as if even the firewood wants them to succeed. For the boys and the reader alike, this is a moment of hope—they have made a fire, long considered crucial to the start of civilization.
"Yellow flames [...] poured upwards and shook a great beard of flame": this first descriptive image of fire (readers will encounter many more over the course of the novel) allows the reader to better imagine the blaze. Golding uses the unusual description "poured upwards" to describe the fire's raging—later, he metaphorically says the "breeze was a river of sparks." Both times, fire is like a liquid, and this elemental inversion plays into the strange setting the boys find themselves in.
The heat is described as "like a blow," as if the heat is punching the boys. This is a violent simile Golding reuses later to describe the midday heat on the island. Heat, both literal and figurative (in the sense of passion, hotheadedness), is prominent in this novel and often has violent results.
Remember that this first fire burns out because it gets too big for the boys to maintain it. These literary devices describe the strength and fury of the fire, which will cause it to use up the wood too quickly. Although the boys are amazed at the power of their first fire, it is this power that causes it to fail—much as Jack's power seems to get ahead of him.
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Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Mirage:
In Chapter 4, a beautiful and weird description of the mirages the boys see on the island uses imagery and simile:
Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like raindrops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors. Sometimes land loomed where there was no land and flicked out like a bubble as the children watched. Piggy discounted all this learnedly as a “mirage” and since no boy could reach even the reef over the stretch of water where the snapping sharks waited, they grew accustomed to these mysteries and ignored them, just as they ignored the miraculous, throbbing stars. At midday the illusions merged into the sky and there the sun gazed down like an angry eye.
Golding's descriptions of the island, like this one, are full of imagery that makes it easier for the reader to imagine the island and understand the awe, confusion, and isolation the boys feel. These strange mirages add to the weird, uncertain mood of the island, especially because the boys (except Piggy) don't know why they occur. The "snapping sharks" and personified sun that, in a simile, "gazed down like an angry eye" add lurking danger to the natural landscape.
The imagery of the mirages is immediate; in other words, Golding has written it intentionally as close to the boys' viewpoints as possible, without explaining the scientific processes or even saying "the boys saw" or "thought they saw." Instead, he writes: "The coral reef [...] would quiver, be plucked apart." Even though the ocean floating up and reef getting torn apart is physically impossible, Golding describes it as if it is really happening, which brings the reader much closer to the boys' uninformed experience of the island. Piggy is the only one who has an idea of what's going on, and his claim about mirages, while correct, is set apart from the actual description.
Several similes allow Golding to build a thorough and evocative image of the mirages. Palms appear to "run like raindrops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors." Land floats in the air "like a bubble." Writing a description of a mirage without saying the word "mirage" until later is quite difficult! Golding's excellent similes allow him to create imagery so that the reader can visualize these optical illusions.
Explanation and Analysis—Pearly Sunshine:
In Chapter 4, the author uses imagery and metaphor to describe how the boys grow accustomed to the island's natural cycles:
The first rhythm that they became used to was the slow swing from dawn to quick dusk. They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten. Toward noon, as the floods of light fell more nearly to the perpendicular, the stark colors of the morning were smoothed in pearl and opalescence; and the heat—as though the impending sun’s height gave it momentum—became a blow that they ducked, running to the shade and lying there, perhaps even sleeping.
The phrase "the slow swing from dawn to quick dusk" is a metaphor for the movement of the day. The "slow swing" suggests a gentle rocking motion, appropriate for the life of leisure, play, and napping that the narrator describes the boys enjoying. Their enjoyment is a bodily one, and Golding's imagery and metaphors allow the reader to imagine the sensual pleasures of the island, which include the "bright sun," "sweet air," and "floods of light." One excellent metaphor says the island looks "smoothed in pearl and opalescence" during midday—the sun makes the island look like a jewel. Finally, "the heat […] became a blow that they ducked." In this descriptive metaphor, the heat is like a punch. This metaphor helps readers comprehend the oppressive heat, which is both literally dangerous to the boys and figuratively representative of the hotheadedness and passion which overtakes the characters during the novel, leading to violence and death. Once again, although the description of the island here is beautiful, a strain of dread underlies the natural paradise.
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—The Ocean Leviathan:
In Chapter 6, Ralph looks out at the ocean while exploring Castle Rock, and the narrator uses a variety of literary devices to describe it:
Now he saw the landsman’s view of the swell and it seemed like the breathing of some stupendous creature. Slowly the waters sank among the rocks, revealing pink tables of granite, strange growths of coral, polyp, and weed. Down, down, the waters went, whispering like the wind among the heads of the forest. There was one flat rock there, spread like a table, and the waters sucking down on the four weedy sides made them seem like cliffs. Then the sleeping leviathan breathed out, the waters rose, the weed streamed, and the water boiled over the table rock with a roar. There was no sense of the passage of waves; only this minute-long fall and rise and fall.
Golding's descriptions of the ocean use personification, simile, and metaphor to create the image of a massive, sleeping (for now) monster. The ocean looks like a massive creature breathing; it is a "leviathan." This characterization adds to the reader's sense of dread, and it gives readers a sense of what Ralph sees when he looks out at the water separating him from his home: the ocean seems an insurmountable obstacle.
The water is "whispering like the wind among the heads of the forest." Just as Golding compares fire to water, now water is compared to another natural element: wind. The boys are surrounded by the natural, which seems to operate by mysterious principles and, even worse, cannot be totally controlled by humans. Fire, water, wind, and other forces of the natural environment are strong and unmerciful.
Again, note Golding's careful and evocative descriptions of the natural environment. He supports his imagery with similes and metaphors: for instance, the rocks are "spread like a table" and "seem like cliffs." Repeated returns to the island's natural scenery are both beautiful and worrying—as Golding describes it, danger lurks under every piece of the island landscape.
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Dreaming of Home:
In Chapter 7, in a stream of consciousness flashback, Ralph daydreams of his home country, England.
Once, following his father from Chatham to Devonport, they had lived in a cottage on the edge of the moors. In the succession of houses that Ralph had known, this one stood out with particular clarity because after that house he had been sent away to school. Mummy had still been with them and Daddy had come home every day. […] When you went to bed there was a bowl of cornflakes with sugar and cream. And the books—they stood on the shelf by the bed, leaning together with always two or three laid flat on top because he had not bothered to put them back properly.
Since the book starts after the boys have crash-landed on the island, and since it proceeds chronologically, flashbacks are the only way the reader can see Ralph's past through his own eyes. Ralph's memories of home, even when they are not as detailed as this one, humanize him and make the reader pity him. We also get small details about Ralph's former life, which is so different from his life on the island as to be shocking. Although we don't know everything about Ralph and his family, we do learn that his father didn't always "come home every day," and that his mother either left or died.
This flashback is written in a different style from the rest of the novel. Note the shifts between second person pronoun "you" and third person pronoun "he." The rest of the book is narrated in the third person, but this slip into the second person destabilizes the memory and makes it dreamlike. In this stream of consciousness moment, rather than recalling a specific event, Ralph lists unconnected associations and images of objects.
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Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Christlike:
Often, Simon is compared to Jesus Christ or called a "Christ figure." But the book never explicitly says he is like Christ. How do readers understand him as similar to the Christian Savior? This scene, in chapter 8, creates a strong allusion using imagery and metaphor:
He went on among the creepers until he reached the great mat that was woven by the open space and crawled inside. Beyond the screen of leaves the sunlight pelted down and the butterflies danced in the middle their unending dance. He knelt down and the arrow of the sun fell on him. That other time the air had seemed to vibrate with heat; but now it threatened. Soon the sweat was running from his long coarse hair. He shifted restlessly but there was no avoiding the sun. Presently he was thirsty, and then very thirsty. He continued to sit.
This meditative moment evokes Jesus fasting in the desert for 40 days. Despite his thirst and his discomfort with the sun, Simon does not move. What is he waiting for? This moment of suffering and waiting is something many figures in the Bible undergo, including and especially Jesus. Simon kneels as if in prayer. Even if the novel is not explicitly Christian, Golding seems to use Jesus as a model for Simon's character.
The metaphor "arrow of the sun" suggests indicating Simon is receiving divine guidance or seeking it. The sun often represents a deity, and in this novel the sun and heat are often painful. This is once again true here, where the heat is explicitly described as uncomfortable and also metaphorically called an "arrow." In a Christian understanding, being close to God does not mean one's life will be free of suffering; in fact, quite the opposite often occurs, not only in the story of Jesus's crucifixion, but also with Christian martyrs. Simon's position as a Christlike figure in the book does not only depend on his spiritual awareness and wisdom, but also his suffering, unique exposure to death (when he frees the parachutist's corpse), and eventual "sacrifice," when the boys kill him.
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Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—The Parachutist's Corpse:
In a climactic scene in Chapter 9, Simon climbs on top of the mountain and sees that the "Beast" is a parachutist's rotting skeleton suspended on ropes. The parachute attached to the corpse is occasionally filled with wind and lifts the body up. Imagery and personification mark this passage:
Simon felt his knees smack the rock. He crawled forward and soon he understood. The tangle of lines showed him the mechanics of this parody; he examined the white nasal bones, the teeth, the colors of corruption. He saw how pitilessly the layers of rubber and canvas held together the poor body that should be rotting away. Then the wind blew again and the figure lifted, bowed, and breathed foully at him. Simon knelt on all fours and was sick till his stomach was empty. Then he took the lines in his hands; he freed them from the rocks and the figure from the wind’s indignity.
There is a lot of personification here, some of it seemingly contradictory. Notice that Simon feels sorry for the corpse: "He saw how pitilessly the layers of rubber and canvas held together the poor body." The personified parachute is pitiless; the body is disrespected by this situation. Simon approaches this dead body.
However, then "the figure lifted, bowed, and breathed foully at him." The personified corpse seems to have taken on a life of its own when it is lifted by the wind. Despite Simon's pity for it, it is still monstrous and "breathed foully," a metaphor for the rotting smell it makes when the wind blows toward him. However, Simon eventually "freed [...] the figure from the wind's indignity." Simon overcomes fear and disgust to lay the body to rest, and the phrase "the wind's indignity" illustrates how important this action is both for Simon and for Golding. The wind, a natural force, is personified into something that can inflict indignity on people, and Simon, as a human, has the power to right this wrong.
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Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—The Pig's Skull:
In Chapter 12, while roaming the jungle, Ralph sees the pig skull Simon had been communicating with earlier. The narrator uses imagery, personification, and simile to describe this moment:
Ralph nearly flung himself behind a tree when he saw something standing in the center; but then he saw that the white face was bone and that the pig’s skull grinned at him from the top of a stick. He […] looked steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically. An inquisitive ant was busy in one of the eye sockets but otherwise the thing was lifeless. Or was it? Little prickles of sensation ran up and down his back. He stood, the skull about on a level with his face, and held up his hair with two hands. The teeth grinned, the empty sockets seemed to hold his gaze masterfully and without effort. What was it? The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won’t tell.
The pig skull is personified into a creepy, ghostly figure that seems to grin at Ralph evilly. He can't tell whether it's "lifeless." It seems to know secrets—perhaps the secrets it told Simon—but Ralph doesn't have a dialogue with the skull like Simon did. The skull's menacing personification connects the more grounded Ralph to Simon's esoteric experiences. It likely goes without saying, but the skull is a vivid and frightening image that effectively adds suspense and fear in the final chapter of the novel.
As before, personification makes the natural environment seem alive and knowing here: this is not only true for the grinning skull, but for the "inquisitive ant" as well. In a simile, the skull's color is also compared to the conch. By drawing a line between the now-shattered shell that represented civilization and the pig's skull, what is Golding trying to illustrate? Reasonable minds may differ on the precise interpretation, but perhaps what we should note is that the skull has replaced the conch—in which case fear and violence have replaced civilized order on the island. Just as Roger broke the conch by killing Piggy earlier, Ralph now breaks the skull by punching it. Roger rejected civilization, and Ralph rejects fear and violence.
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