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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
Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Spinning Gold:
In Chapter 1, the narrator explores Ruth's relationship with a young Milkman, revealing the origins of his strange nickname. Both imagery and allusion are employed in the following passage to illustrate this mother-son relationship:
She felt him. His restraint, his courtesy, his indifference, all of which pushed her into fantasy. She had the distinct impression that his lips were pulling from her a thread of light. It was as though she were a cauldron issuing spinning gold. Like the miller’s daughter—the one who sat at night in a straw-filled room, thrilled with the secret power Rumpelstiltskin had given her: to see golden thread stream from her very own shuttle.
The narrator compares Ruth's feelings while breastfeeding her older son to that of the miller's daughter from the fairytale Rumpelstiltskin, in which Rumpelstiltskin strikes a deal to take the firstborn child of the miller's daughter in exchange for showing her how to spin gold out of straw. For Ruth, experiencing her son's regard (albeit in a strange, indirect manner) is akin to a magical experience. She feels that the connection built between them via breastfeeding resonates like alchemy, the creation of gold from nothing.
That Ruth would fixate on Milkman in this manner highlights the isolation and stagnancy she feels in her adult relationships. She yearns to maintain this intimate mother-child connection with Milkman—extending it beyond its natural conclusion—because she feels deprived in all other aspects of her life.
Part 1, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Black:
The following example of imagery from Chapter 2 is a key part of Pilate's character introduction, painting her as a strange yet charismatic woman to both Milkman and readers:
“And talking about dark! You think dark is just one color, but it ain’t. There’re five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don’t stay still. It moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow."
Pilate uses sensory imagery to describe the different ways something can be "dark." She connects darkness to color, but also to a state of being—a Blackness she experiences intimately, as a wide variety of shades and hues. This passage helps characterize her as a strange yet curious and intelligent person. Furthermore, Pilate's use of imagery characterizes her as a woman filled to the brim with both complexity and contradiction—a stark contrast to her rigid, emotionally dead brother.
Related Themes:
