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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—The Band’s Music:
Near the end of the story, as the narrator is listening to Sonny and the rest of his jazz band play music together, Baldwin uses imagery to bring readers more fully into the scene, as seen in the following passage:
And, as though he commanded, Sonny began to play. Something began to happen. And Creole let out the reins. The dry, low, black man said something awful on the drums, Creole answered, and the drums talked back. Then the horn insisted, sweet and high, slightly detached perhaps, and Creole listened, commenting now and then, dry, and driving, beautiful and calm and old. Then they all came together again, and Sonny was part of the family again.
Here Baldwin helps readers to experience the music in this scene via imagery-laden descriptions like the drums “talking back,” the horns sounding “sweet and high,” and Creole’s fiddle sounding “dry, and driving, beautiful and calm and old.” All of these unusual descriptions help readers to “hear” jazz in a new way, one in which the instruments seem to take on lives of their own and “come together” as a sort of “family.”
This moment is significant because it helps readers to understand how impactful this group jazz session is. Just as readers are “hearing” the music in this new way, the narrator is, too. The awed tone in his narration here communicates that the narrator is starting to understand why Sonny was willing to throw away a “normal” life in pursuit of his music, that it’s about so much more than notes on a piano—it’s about being part of a “family” moving in harmony together.
Related Themes:
