Previous
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 1: Jojo
Explanation and Analysis—Stink of Death:
Jojo is filled with uncontrollable disgust while in the throes of slaughtering a goat with Pop. In this moment, Ward uses foreshadowing through visual and olfactory imagery to show Jojo’s physical and emotional response to the goat’s death:
It's the smell of death, the rot coming from something just alive, something hot with blood and life. I grimace, wanting to make Kayla's stink face, the face she makes when she's angry or impatient; to everyone else, it looks like she's smelled something nasty: her green eyes squinting, her nose a mushroom, her twelve tiny toddler teeth showing through her open mouth. I want to make that face because something about scrunching up my nose and squeezing the smell away might lessen it, might cut off that stink of death.
The visual and olfactory imagery in this passage draws attention to the fine line between death and life. Jojo describes the odor of the recently slaughtered animal as being instantly repulsive. It’s smothering him, “hot with blood and life” in a way that makes him feel as though he wants to escape the room. He feels overwhelmed by the stench of the goat and wishes that he could screw up his face in a childish pout like Kayla would. This language puts the reader in the middle of Jojo’s sensory world and reminds them that he is still very much a child. It forces their attention to focus on both the animal’s body and on Jojo’s body.
The foreshadowing in this scene links Jojo’s reaction to death with the broader ideas of death and helplessness that shape the novel. This moment predicts the mounting presence of death and violence that surrounds Jojo throughout the rest of the book, from Pop's stories about Parchman to the discovery of the ghost-tree in the final chapter. Jojo’s strong, instinctual rejection of the slaughter hints at the emotional and psychic cost of growing up in a world in which killing is normalized. This pattern begins at home, long before the road trip begins.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5: Jojo
Explanation and Analysis—Sweet Red Liquid:
Leonie feeds Kayla a toxic potion of blackberry leaves, and a worried Jojo forces the toddler to vomit it up before she digests it. Ward uses visual, olfactory, and tactile imagery to make this scene feel more immediate and physically distressing for the reader:
[...] I carry Kayla into the bathroom and stick my finger down her throat and make her throw up. She fights me, hitting at my arms, crying against my hand, sobbing but not making no words, but I do it three times, make her vomit over my hand, hot as her little body, three times, all of it red and smelling sweet, until I'm crying and she's shrieking.
The tactile imagery of the phrase “hot as her little body” forces the reader to imagine the heat of Kayla's vomit coursing over Jojo’s hand. Kayla is already feverish and sweaty, and the vomit coming out of her is the same temperature as her body. The act of vomiting becomes something Jojo and Kayla both participate in, especially when Jojo can feel the warmth of the vomit rushing over his skin. This touch-focused detail shows how uncomfortable and disgusted Jojo is about having to do this to his sister. It also shows how much he cares for her, as he’s willing to perform this very unpleasant act to prevent the blackberry-leaf potion from potentially making her even sicker.
The visual and smell imagery both amplify the sensory depth of the moment by adding yet more unpleasant details. The red vomit is bright and jarring for both Kayla and Jojo, especially because of the associations red has with bodily fluids. Any amount of red liquid escaping a body is an unnerving sight, but such a large quantity is especially distressing for the children. The fact that it smells sweet just makes the scene all the more visceral. All of the imagery of this moment in the bathroom is illustrative of a damp, scarlet, fetid-smelling struggle. Both Jojo and Kayla cry throughout this episode, but for different reasons. Though Jojo knows he’s acting to protect his sister, the way she fights him and sobs makes him feel as though they are both being punished for Leonie’s risky choices.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9: Richie
Explanation and Analysis—A Screaming Note:
After the Sunshine Woman describes the brutal details of a lynching, Richie has a physical response to her words that move through him like a wave he can’t stop. The author uses tactile imagery, sound imagery, and a simile to show how intensely frightening and distressing Richie finds the Sunshine Woman’s tale:
I felt a stinging in my toes, in my soles, in my legs, up my butt, and through my back, where it burst to fire in my bones, licking all through my ribs, a loose powerful feeling, like a voice freed from a throat, a screaming note all through me, and it was then I knew I was going to run.
The tactile imagery in this quotation begins at the edges of Richie’s body, in his toes and feet, then builds upward until it reaches his throat. The feeling grows hotter and more intense as it moves up through his body, becoming “fire in [his] bones” that ripples through his entire skeleton. The reader can trace the path of sensation as Richie describes it, as though it’s coming up through the floor and entering Richie’s body through the soles of his feet. The feeling is so intense that it also changes from one kind of sensation to another. The tactile imagery of the stinging itch of the news becomes auditory. By the time it reaches his ribs, it's untethered and consuming, like a "screaming note" as it nears the top of his body. Richie himself doesn’t scream aloud, here. The scream is internal, and it builds up inside him until he knows he’s going to try and run away from Parchman.
Related Themes:
Chapter 14: Leonie
Explanation and Analysis—Color of Clay:
Right after Mam dies, Leonie looks up at the sunset-colored sky and struggles to reconcile what she sees with what she feels. Ward uses visual and tactile imagery to show how losing Mam impacts how Leonie experiences the world.
The sky has turned the color of sandy red clay: orange cream. The heat of the day at its heaviest: the insects awoken from their winter slumber. I cannot bear the world.
The visual imagery of this passage is heavy with Leonie’s grief. Her sorrow makes the sky seem impossibly heavy, as thick as “sandy red clay.” Instead of being a pleasing sunset color, the “orange-cream” of the sky doesn’t comfort or soothe Leonie. This is partially because it reminds her too much of soil. The sky is pressing down on Leonie in the same way that the clay-rich Mississippi dirt on her grave would press Mam down.
The tactile imagery adds to this sense of pressure. Leonie feels that in this moment the heat of the day is at “its heaviest.” The orange sky has turned to mud and weighs down on her, and worse, it’s full of hungry insects. When she says she cannot “bear” the world, she means “bear” in two senses of the word. She cannot “bear it” emotionally, as everything she sees and feels seems too much to cope with. Because it all also feels so weighty and enormous, she also cannot “bear” the weight of the “heavy” day. She no longer wants to be in the world at all.
Related Themes:
