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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 6
Explanation and Analysis—Filthy, Lonely, Dark:
Imagery leads the reader down to the filthy depths of the Davenports' lodgings in Chapter 6. With Mr. Davenport on his deathbed, John Barton and George Wilson pay a visit to his family. Upon arrival, they are greeted with a terrible sight:
After the account I have given of the state of the street, no one can be surprised that on going into the cellar inhabited by Davenport, the smell was so fetid as almost to knock the two men down. Quickly recovering themselves, as those inured to such things do, they began to penetrate the thick darkness of the place, and to see three or four little children rolling on the damp, nay wet brick floor, through which the stagnant, filthy moisture of the street oozed up; the fireplace was empty and black; the wife sat on her husband’s lair, and cried in the dark loneliness.
The Davenports' miserable cellar overwhelms in both sight and smell—almost literally so. Situated beside piles of feces, the home nearly knocks the visitors over with its fetid odors. It looks as bad as it smells: children roll across the damp floor where moisture “[oozes]” up, and the family sits in almost total darkness. Dank and lifeless, the Davenports' cellar is more dungeon than home. By appealing so directly to the senses, the novel constructs a scene that stops just short of being hellish. It stamps in the reader’s memory the terrors of poverty, giving them an immediacy that commentary alone would lack. This moment’s imagery expresses the abject living circumstances of Manchester’s poor in some of the most visceral, revolting terms.
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Chapter 22
Explanation and Analysis—A Lovely Night:
In Chapter 22, night falls as Mary discovers the true culprit behind Harry Carson’s murder and aches with anxiety. Rich imagery celebrates the beauty of a natural world that shows “little sympathy” for human worries:
All was so still, so motionless, so hard! Very different to this lovely night in the country in which I am now writing, where the distant horizon is soft and undulating in the moonlight, and the nearer trees sway gently to and fro in the night-wind with something of almost human motion; and the rustling air makes music among their branches, as if speaking soothingly to the weary ones, who lie awake in heaviness of heart. The sights and sounds of such a night lull pain and grief to rest.
This vivid visual account creates a jarring contrast with Mary’s inner turmoil. In spite of news about the murder and Jem’s arrest, the novel lingers over the sight with a sense of poetic appreciation: the “horizon is soft and undulating” under the moonlight. Trees sway in the soft breeze. More memorable, though, is Mary’s indifference to it all. With her father gone and lover arrested, she trembles with terrible knowledge and dark secrets. An otherwise lovely night goes unnoticed by the protagonist as she disentangles her ideas and prepares for action. Stunning but disregarded, the nightscape captures the dissonance between Mary’s internal and external worlds.
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