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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
Act 3, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Hellena Unmasked:
In the first scene of Act III, Willmore finally succeeds in getting Hellena to reveal her face. The two have been flirting throughout the play, but she has never taken her mask off before now. As she removes her mask, Willmore describes her face in detail, which both serves to underline his attraction to her and give the audience the chance to visualize her face.
Oh the charms of those sprightly black eyes! that strangely fair face! full of smiles and dimples! those soft round melting cherry lips! and small even white teeth! not to be expressed but silently adored! – oh, one look more! and strike me dumb, or I shall repeat nothing else till I’m mad.
In this passage, Willmore describes Hellena's beauty in an anatomical way. Verbally dissecting her physical characteristics, he appears to see her in fragments rather than as a whole. This invokes a trope in early modern poetry, in which male writers eulogized female beauty feature by feature. These descriptions would often almost sound like checklists, as the writer essentially went through to examine and confirm whether the maiden's hair, eyes, nose, lips, neck, and so on were as they should be according to the beauty standards of the day. The first time Willmore lays eyes on Hellena's face, he goes through this checklist with relief.
Willmore feels soothed to find that he is physically attracted to Hellena; before this scene, he repeatedly expresses a fear that she is ugly underneath her mask. This speaks to a power imbalance between Hellena and Willmore: her disguise has both made her more and less vulnerable in their interactions up until this point. Willmore has continued to pursue her in part because of their witty rapport, but also partly because the mystery of her appearance has titillated him. If, upon removing her mask, Willmore were displeased with Hellena's face, she would have totally lost her value. Hellena's main reason for wearing a mask is to participate in the festivities of Carnival without being caught by her brother, but an additional benefit crops up over the course of the play: it gives her the rare opportunity to engage with—and charm—men solely on the basis of her personality and intelligence.
The dramatic genre limits the physical descriptions that a reader gets of characters. Unless the list of characters or stage directions specify what the characters look like, a dramatist must rely on one of the other characters to describe a given character's appearance. The reader knows a fair bit about how people are dressed, but the characters' faces (which, besides, are covered at most times) go undescribed. It is therefore useful to the reader that Willmore not only revels in Hellena's beauty but offers a list of her features. This allows a reader to visualize the character with slightly more precision. For an audience watching the play, it is also useful to receive a description of Hellena's face, as it is unlikely that they have gotten an up-close look at the actors on stage.
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