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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
Pages 91-124
Explanation and Analysis—Frieze of Human Heads:
The man and boy’s journey does not lack for gruesome details, and vivid imagery supplies the horror to many of its most disturbing moments. The scene by the ruined orchard is no exception. When they pass the remains of its walls, they encounter a scene of terrifying violence:
The wall beyond held a frieze of human heads, all faced alike, dried and caved with their taut grins and shrunken eyes. They wore gold rings in their leather ears and in the wind their sparse and ratty hair twisted about on their skulls. The teeth in their sockets like dental molds, the crude tattoos etched in some homebrewed woad faded in the beggared sunlight.
McCarthy traces the appearance of this frieze with painstaking precision, and to morbid effect. The “shrunken eyes,” “ratty hair,” and “leather ears” force the reader to confront the immediate consequences of violence. The imagery disturbs and unsettles in its attentiveness to the dead, disfigured bodies. It also foreshadows the other instances of violence and death to come, such as the later encounters with cannibal victims in the mansion basement. By the time they pass the melted tar road, the boy looks on “untroubled” at the dead “figures half mired on the blacktop.” He explains to the man that those gruesome images are “already there” in his mind, etched into memory. This scene by the orchard is one of many instances that can’t be unseen or forgotten.
Related Themes:
