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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
Chapter 4: Abhilash Talkies
Explanation and Analysis—Quarter-Boiled:
When Estha goes into the lobby of the movie theater to sing by himself, he encounters the Orangedrink Lemondrink man behind the refreshment counter. The Orangedrink Lemondrink man then sexually assaults Estha, illustrated through imagery and a metaphor:
Then the gristly-bristly face contorted, and Estha’s hand was wet and hot and sticky. It had egg white on it. White egg white. Quarter-boiled.
The lemondrink was cold and sweet. The penis was soft and shriveled like an empty leather change purse. With his dirtcolored rag, the man wiped Estha’s other hand.
This gruesome imagery is tinged with childlike naiveté and innocence. The Orangedrink Lemondrink man asks Estha to hold his penis, which Estha describes using innocent and mundane imagery. Because he is in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation, Estha attempts to understand this instance of sexual abuse through everyday occurrences, using banal descriptions. It is also possible that Estha simply does not understand what is happening to him and uses the comparison to a "empty leather change purse" out of necessity. He compares what he sees to what he knows. This explanation also applies to the metaphor comparing the man's semen to "egg white." Only with this metaphor is Estha able to explain his horrific experience at the movie theater; he is seemingly unable to process the traumatic reality of his situation.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9: Mrs. Pillai, Mrs. Eapen, Mrs. Rajagopalan
Explanation and Analysis—Unkissed Princes:
As the sun sets in Ayemenem, Rahel notices the small things in the landscape through sensory imagery:
The green-for-the-day had seeped from the trees. Dark palm leaves were splayed like drooping combs against the monsoon sky. The orange sun slid through their bent, grasping teeth. A squadron of fruit bats sped across the gloom. In the abandoned ornamental garden, Rahel, watched by lolling dwarfs and a forsaken cherub, squatted by the stagnant pond and watched toads hop from stone to scummy stone. Beautiful Ugly Toads. Slimy. Warty Croaking. Yearning, unkissed princes trapped inside them. Food for snakes that lurked in the long June grass. Rustle. Lunge. No more toad to hop from stone to scummy stone. No more prince to kiss.
Even though this description of an Ayemenem sunset occurs in the book's present timeline (June 1993), the youth and innocence of childhood can still be felt in the words. Toads become “unkissed princes,” but there is a little more darkness in present-day Rahel, for she admits that these “unkissed princes” just become food for snakes. Present-day Rahel has already experienced the Terror and has become the "emptiness." Much like the wearied imagery from the first page of the novel—"The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge[...]"—this passage is also dictated by gloom and jadedness. Both of these negative examples of imagery occur in the 1993 timeline, illustrating the devastating effect that the Terror had on the twins' imagination and appreciation of Ayemenem. The nature is now sullen and does not have the same vibrant life as before.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13: The Pessimist and the Optimist
Explanation and Analysis—A Spongy Mermaid:
In a description of Sophie Mol's corpse, taken out of the river Meenachal, the novel uses contrasting imagery:
It was something to do with the way she lay. The angle of her limbs. Something to do with Death’s authority. Its terrible stillness. Green weed and river grime was woven into her beautiful red-brown hair. Her sunken eyelids were raw, nibbled at by fish. (O yes they do, the deepswimming fish. They sample everything.) Her mauve corduroy pinafore said Holiday! in a tilting, happy font. She was as wrinkled as a dhobi’s thumb from being in water for too long. A spongy mermaid who had forgotten how to swim. A silver thimble clenched, for luck, in her little fist.
This depiction of Sophie Mol’s water-logged corpse paints a sharp contrast between childhood beauty and grimy death. The gore of “green weed and river grime” is juxtaposed against Sophie Mol's “beautiful red-brown hair.” Her “sunken eyelids […] nibbled at by fish” are sickening for anyone to look at, yet her “mauve corduroy pinafore” is still recognizable. The disparity in her appearance furthers the idea of Sophie Mol’s death overpowering her life. Only the memory of her loss remains in people’s minds, both at the time and all these years later.
Still, the characteristic naiveté of the twins' perspectives remains in this imagery, particularly through the innocent and curious parenthetical interjection.
Related Themes:
Chapter 18: The History House
Explanation and Analysis—Boot on Bone:
When Estha and Rahel wake in the History House, they find Velutha being viciously beaten by six policeman. With gruesome imagery, the novel illustrates the brutality of the officers and the nature of Velutha's injuries:
They heard the thud of wood on flesh. Boot on bone. On teeth. The muffled grunt when a stomach is kicked in. The muted crunch of skull on cement. The gurgle of blood on a man’s breath when his lung is torn by the jagged end of a broken rib.
In this moment, the novel must use auditory imagery to describe Velutha’s barbarous beating because the twins cannot see what is happening in the dark. They only have the sounds of pain and injury to guide their understanding of the situation and the degree of Velutha's defeat. To have only sound and smell in the dark is perhaps worse than to see in the light for the twins. Their imagination and fragile minds allow them to conceive of the worst. The change in tense from past to present demonstrates the twins' conjecture of injuries: "the muffled grunt when a stomach is kicked in," "the gurgle... when his lung is torn." These descriptions are common, not specific to Velutha, a product of the twins' imagination. However, simply the thuds, grunts, crunches, and gurgles of the beating are enough to scar Estha and Rahel for life.
