Imagery


 * __ Imagery 1 __** //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.

Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” __ Discuss __ :

1. These stanzas show the Mariner’s changing attitude toward the creatures of the sea. What is the Mariner’s attitude in the first stanza? What image reveals this attitude?

2. What is the Mariner’s attitude in the second stanza? What imagery that reveals this change?


 * __ Imagery 2 __** //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

And now nothing but drums, a battery of drums, the conga drums jamming out, in a //descarga//, and the drummers lifting their heads and shaking under some kind of spell. There’s rain drums, like pitter-patter pitter-patter but a hundred times faster, and then slamming-the-door drums and dropping-the-bucket drums, kicking-the-car-fender drums. Then circus door drums and then coconuts-falling-out-of-the-trees-and-thumping-against-the-ground drums, then lion-skin drums, then the-wacking-of-a-hand-against-a-wall drums, the beating-of-a-pillow drums, heavy-stones-against-a-wall drums, then the thickest-forest-tree-trunks-pounding drums, and then the mountain-rumble drums, then the little-birds-learning-to-fly drums and the big-birds-alighting-on-a-rooftop-and-fanning-their-immense-wings drums… - Oscar Hijuelos, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

__ Discuss __ : 1. Read the passage aloud. How does Hijuelos create the auditory imagery of drumming? In other words, how do the words imitate the sounds they represent?

2. Hijuelos repeats the word then eight times in this passage. What does this repetition contribute to the image of drumming?

__** Imagery 3 **__//Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. - Kate Chopin, //The// //Awakening//

__ Discuss __ :

1. Although the narrator “looks into the distance,” the images are primarily auditory. What are the auditory images in the passage? What mood do these images create?

2. The last sentence of this passage contains an olfactory image (//the musky odor of pinks fills// // the air // ). What is the effect of the use of an olfactory image after a series of auditory ones?

__** Imagery 4 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

It was a mine town, uranium most recently. Dust devils whirled sand off the mountains. Even after the heaviest of rains, the water seeped back into the ground, between stones, and the earth was parched again.

- Linda Hogan, “Making Do”

__ Discuss __ :

1. What feelings do you associate with the images of dusty mountains and dry earth?

2. There are two images associated with land in the third sentence. Identify the two images and compare and contrast the feelings they evoke

__** Imagery 5 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down as blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Trolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

- T.S. Eliot, “The WasteLand”

__ Discuss __ :

1. Paraphrase the image of the first two lines. What mood does the image create?

2. List the auditory images in these lines. How do these images help create mood?

__** Imagery 6 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

At first I saw only water so clear it magnified the fibers in the walls of the gourd. On the surface, I saw only my won round reflection. The old man encircled the neck of the gourd with his thumb and index finger and gave it a shake. As the water shook, then settled, the colors and lights shimmered into a picture, not reflecting anything I could see around me. There at the bottom of the gourd were my mother and father scanning the sky, which was where I was. - Maxine Hong Kingston, //The// //Woman Warrior//

__ Discuss __ :

1. What kind of imagery is used in this passage? Circle the images.

2. Compare and contrast the imagery of the last sentence with the imagery of the first four sentences.


 * __ Imagery 7 __** //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

I sat on the stump of a tree at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great expanse of the forests, somber under the sunshine, rolling like a sea, with glints of winding rivers, the grey spots of villages, and here and there a clearing, like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of continuous tree-tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast and monotonous land-scape; the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devoured the sunshine; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and polished within the faint haze, seemed to rise up to the sky in a wall of steel.

- Joseph Conrad, //Lord Jim// __ Discuss __ :

1. Complete the chart below with images from the passage:


 * Images of Land || Images of Sea: ||

2. What attitude toward the land and the sea do these images convey?

__** Imagery 8 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

I also enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like it on moonlight nights. I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the heavens, making a shining path for us to follow; but I know she is there, and as I lie back among the pillows and put my hand in the water, I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes. Sometimes a daring little fish slips between my fingers, and often a pond-lily passes shyly against my hand. Frequently, as we emerge from the shelter of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the air about me. A luminous warmth seems to enfold me. - Helen Keller, the Story of My Life

__ Discuss __ :

1. Since Helen Keller was blind and deaf, tactile imagery becomes a focus in her writing. Record the tactile images in this passage.

2. Which images in the passages are more specific: visual or tactile? Support your answers with reference to the passage.

__** Imagery 9 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

Queen: There is a willow grows askant in the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she make Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples… There on the pendent boughs her crownet* weeds*coronet Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,**hymns** Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death. - William Shakespeare, Hamlet
 * As one incapable of* her own distress,*insensible to **
 * Or like a creature native and indued **endowed

__ Discuss __ :

1. Examine the highlighted passage. How does the imagery in these lines help the reader understand that Ophelia (“she”) is mad?

2. Line 10 is not figurative. Would it strengthen or weaken the line to change the image to a simile such as, “Which time she sang like a flawed recording”? Explain.

__** Imagery 10 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

A ripe guava is yellow, although some varieties have a pink tinge. The skin is thick, firm, and sweet. **Its heart is bright pink and almost solid with seeds.** The most delicious part of the guava surrounds the tiny seeds. If you don’t know how to eat a guava, the seeds end up in the crevices between your teeth. When you bit into a ripe guava, your teeth must grip the bumpy surface and sink into the thick edible skin without hitting the center… A green guava is sour and hard. You bit into it at its widest point, because it’s easier to grasp with your teeth. you hear the skin, meat, and seeds crunching inside your head, while the inside of your mouth explodes in little spurts of **sour**. - Esmerelda Santiago, //When I Was Puerto Rican//

__ Discuss __ :

1. The imagery in the second sentence is simple and direct. What effects do such simplicity and directness have on the reader?

2. Santiago uses an adjective (sour) as a noun in her final image. What effect does this have on the meaning of the image?

__** Imagery 11 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there: Thrust our past service from the devil’s stud! - Robert Browning, “Child Roland to the DarkTower Came”

__ Discuss __ :

1. What feelings are produced by the image of the grass in lines 1-3?

2. Does the imagery of the horse (lines 4-6) inspire sympathy? Explain your answer with direct references to specific images.

__** Imagery 12 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

All the hedges are singing with yellow birds! A boy runs by with lemons in his hands.

- Rita Dove, “Notes From a Tunisian Journal”

__ Discuss __ :

1. How does the image of the boy in the second line intensify your understanding of the hedges in the first line?

2. How would the effect be different if the second line read, “A boy runs by with apples in his hands”?

__** Imagery 13 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

In the midst of poverty and want. Felix carried with pleasure to his sister of the first little white flower that peeped out from beneath the snowy ground.

- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

__ Discuss __ :

1. What do you understand about Felix from the imagery of this sentence?

2. How would the effect be different if Felix carried his sister a big bouquet of spring flowers?


 * __ Imagery 14 __** //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

But when the old man left, he was suddenly aware of the old hogan: the red sand floor had been swept unevenly; the boxes were spilling out rags; the trunks were full of the junk and trash an old man saves – notebooks and whisker hairs. - Leslie Marmon Silko, //Ceremony//

__ Discuss __ :

1. What scene is created by the images in this selection? Brainstorm a list of adjectives to describe this scene.

2. What attitude toward the old man does the final image (the trunks were full of the junk and trash an old man saves – notebooks and whisker hairs) reveal?


 * __ Imagery 15 __** //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

This is the time of year when almost every night the frail, illegal fire balloons appear. Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint still honored in these parts, the paper chambers flush and fill with light that comes and goes, like hearts.

- Elizabeth Bishop, “The Armadillo (for Robert Lowell)”

__ Discuss __ : 1. What kind of imagery does Bishop use in these lines? How does the use of imagery contribute to the reader’s understanding of the lines?

2. The image of the balloons rising and filling with light ends with a simile (like hearts). How is the effect of the simile different from that of the image?

__** Imagery 16 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

There were some dirty plates and a glass of milk beside her on a small table near the rank, disheveled bed ---

Wrinkled and nearly blind she lay and snored rousing with anger in her tones to cry for food. - William Carlos Williams, “The Las Words of my English Grandmother” __ Discuss __ :

1. Fill in the chart below with concrete images from the poem:
 * Visual (sight) || Olfactory (smell) || Auditory (sound) || Gustatory (taste) ||

2. Contrast the attitude toward the old woman in the two stanzas. How does it change? What images create this change in attitude?

__** Imagery 17 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

The egwugwu house was now a pandemonium of quavering voices: Aru oyim de de de dei! filled the air as the spirits of the ancestors, just emerged from the earth, greeted themselves in their esoteric language.

- Chinua Achebe, //Things Fall Apart//

__ Discuss __ :

1. Read this passage aloud. How does Achebe’s use of the Ibo language contribute to the reader’s ability to “hear” the auditory images?

2. Compare Achebe’s passage with:

// The “egwuwu” house was now full of voices which filled the air as the spirits of the ancestors, just emerged from the earth, greeted themselves in their esoteric language. //

In which passage can the reader “hear” the voices? How does the ability to “hear” the voices help readers understand the passage?

__** Imagery 18 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning – half frost, half drizzle– and temporary brooks crossed our path, gurgling from the uplands.

- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

__ Discuss __ :

1. Bronte uses both visual and auditory imagery in this passage. Which words create visual images ? Which words create auditory images? Which words create both?

2. What feelings are traditionally associated with rain, mist, and frost? How would the feeling of this passage be different if the **//rainy night had ushered in a brilliant, sunny morning//**?

__** Imagery 19 **__ //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

I was born the year of the loon in a great commotion. My mother – who **//used to pack $500 cash//** **// in //** **// the shoulders of her gambling coat //** , who had always considered herself the family’s “First Son” – took one look at me and lit out again for a vacation in Sumatra. Her brother purchased my baby clothes; I’ve seen them, **//little clown suits//** **// of //** **// silk and color //**.

- Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, “Chronicle”

__ Discuss __ :

1. Examine the image of the baby clothes in line 11: **//little clown suits of silk and color//**. No specific color is mentioned. What effect does this have on the meaning of the lines?

2. Contrast the description of the mother’s **//gambling coat//** in lines 3 and 4 with the image of the baby clothes in line 11. What attitude do these images reveal about the mother?




 * __ Imagery 20 __** //Voice Lessons// / Nancy Dean

Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard some tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night.
 * // “ //****// Warren //****// ,” she said, “he has come home to die: //**
 * // You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.” //**

- Robert Frost, “The Death of the Hired Man”

__ Discuss __ :

1. Identify visual, auditory, and tactile images in the lines above.

2. How does the poet use imagery to prepare the reader for the announcement in lines 9- 10