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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
Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—Blindness and the Senses:
Sensory imagery in the novel abounds, particularly when Doerr describes Marie-Laurie’s actions and emotions. She is blind, so her other senses are heightened. Doerr uses imagery to illustrate this, taking care to outline in detail the various ways Marie-Laure's sense of touch, smell, taste, and hearing connect her strongly to the world around her. Though as a character she is blind, her point of view does not come across as limited to the reader—quite the contrary. Her experience of the world is bright and colorful, filled with full sounds and textures and tastes, made all the richer for her other sensory deprivation.
Related Themes:
Zero (August 7, 1944): Saint-Malo
Explanation and Analysis—Ribs:
In Section Zero, Doerr describes the devastation of Saint Malo, using imagery and metaphor to paint a vivid picture of the destruction:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In stormy light, its granite glows blue. At the highest tides, the sea creeps into basements at the
very center of town. At the lowest tides, the barnacled ribs of a thousand shipwrecks stick out
above the sea.
Related Themes:
One (1934): Key Pound
Explanation and Analysis—Textured Kindgom:
In Section One, Marie-Laure tragically loses her vision. Her father, Daniel, does everything he can to accommodate his daughter's emergent needs, including bringing her to work with him at the museum. While Daniel works, Marie-Laure observes the work of scientists and staff, honing her other senses on the museum's unique natural specimens. Doerr uses both imagery and metaphor to describe one such specimen, a shell:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The murex Dr. Geffard keeps on his desk can entertain her for a half hour, the hollow spines, the ridged whorls, the deep entrance; it’s a forest of spikes and caves and textures; it’s a kingdom.
Related Themes:
One (1934): Around the World in Eighty Days
Explanation and Analysis—Color:
Marie-Laure is able to "see" color without really seeing it, taking her impressions from past knowledge and whatever emotional associations she forms between certain colors and people or circumstances. When she shares a more intimate relationship with another person, such as with her father, the array of colors Marie-Laure "sees" expands:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She has no memories of her mother but imagines her as white, a soundless brilliance. Her father
radiates a thousand colors, opal, strawberry red, deep russet, wild green; a smell like oil and
metal, the feel of a lock tumbler sliding home, the sound of his key rings chiming as he walks. He
is an olive green when he talks to a department head, an escalating series of oranges when he
speaks to Mademoiselle Fleury from the greenhouses, a bright red when he tries to cook. He glows
sapphire when he sits over his workbench in the evenings, humming almost inaudibly as he works,
the tip of his cigarette gleaming a prismatic blue.
Related Themes:
One (1934): Herr Siedler
Explanation and Analysis—Guns and Light:
In the following example from Section One, Doerr uses visual imagery as a commentary on war, weaponry, power, and the German police state:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The lance corporal looks around the room—the coal stove, the hanging laundry, the undersize
children—with equal measures of condescension and hostility. His handgun is black; it seems to
draw all the light in the room toward it.
Related Themes:
