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
Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—Somewhere Enchanted:
Near the beginning of the story, Nick, in one of his rare narrative asides, describes the scenery outside of Mel and Terri’s kitchen, using imagery and a simile in the process:
Outside in the backyard, one of the dogs began to bark. The leaves of the aspen that leaned past the window ticked against the glass. The afternoon sun was like a presence in this room, the spacious light of ease and generosity. We could have been anywhere, somewhere enchanted. We raised our glasses again and grinned at each other like children who had agreed on something forbidden.
Here, Nick uses imagery when describing the sounds of a dog barking as well as the “ticking” sound of leaves hitting Mel and Terri's kitchen window. In addition to helping readers hear the scene, Nick also helps them visualize it, describing the sunlight in the room as creating a “spacious light of ease and generosity.” These details bring readers into the scene with the two couples, helping them understand viscerally the ease that the characters feel at the beginning of the story.
Nick notably closes this passage with a simile, describing how he, Laura, Mel, and Terri, when raising their drinks, “grinned at each other like children who had agreed on something forbidden.” Here, the mood of the story shifts slightly away from the sense of “ease and generosity” described earlier, hinting that, as the two couples start to drink (and become more and more inebriated), some darker or “forbidden” truths may emerge. This proves to be true, particularly in the way that Mel becomes increasingly aggressive with Terri, despite his statements early on in the story about how love and violence cannot coexist.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Final Lines:
In the final lines of the story, Nick (the narrator) describes how he, Laura, Terri, and Mel go from drinking and having an extended and lively conversation about love to sitting in silence together. In this moment, Carver includes imagery to bring readers more fully into the scene, as seen in the following passage:
Mel turned his glass over. He spilled it out on the table.
“Gin’s gone," Mel said.
Terri said, “Now what?"
I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.
Carver uses imagery to help readers hear this scene by having Nick describe how he can “hear [his] heart beating,” as well as the other characters’ hearts, poetically describing it as “human noise” the four people are making together. Carver also helps readers picture the scene by describing the way that the room “went dark” as the sun set.
Carver uses imagery here in order to bring readers back into their bodies at the end of a story focused on words, ideas, stories, and nonstop dialogue. This is his way of suggesting to readers that love—the topic of the couples’ extended conversation—is not something that can be understood or expressed with words, but is something that must be felt at the bodily level. No matter what the characters believe or say about love, they are all ultimately humans with hearts beating in their chests.
Related Themes:
