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Idioms
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
Explanation and Analysis—Octopus's Garden:
Early in Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette acquaints the reader with Coulibri Estate as it looked and felt in her childhood. In a rich passage, Rhys uses allusion, simile, and imagery to make the garden come alive. As in many of Antoinette's memories, uneasiness and hostility lurk beneath the lush and fragrant beauty.
When Antoinette first brings up the gardens in the first part, she makes a rather conventional allusion, likening the garden at Coulibri to the Garden of Eden: "Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible—the tree of life grew there." However, she immediately qualifies her comparison, noting that "it had gone wild." Although she mainly compares it to the Garden of Eden on the basis of appearance, it seems an apt comparison on another level as well. In Genesis, God expels Adam and Eve from the garden because they give in to temptation and eat the forbidden fruit. Similarly, the Cosway family is eventually driven away from Coulibri because of their misdeeds. The local Black population, a large portion of which consists of formerly enslaved people, is resentful against former plantation owners like the Cosways. Even more broadly, the European drive to colonize the Americas by way of slave labor can be likened to the greed and disobedience of Adam and Eve. In the 15th and following centuries, European explorers often compared the New World to the Garden of Eden.
Following the biblical allusion, Antoinette expands on her description of the garden using vivid visual and olfactory imagery:
The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched.
There is a duality to this description. On the one hand, Antoinette develops the garden as beautiful, lush, and fragrant. On the other hand, it feels menacing and beyond reach. She relies on simile to describe the orchids in further detail.
One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root. Twice a year the octopus orchid flowered—then not an inch of tentacle showed. It was a bell-shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see.
By comparing the one orchid to a snake, she echoes the biblical allusion from earlier. She describes the second orchid more fully, using a simile to compare it to an octopus. This gives insight into the girl's imaginative mind, and again shows that she sees the world around her in simultaneously playful and frightening ways.
Ultimately, Antoinette's descriptions of the garden reveal that the estate has been neglected. This neglect serves as a reminder of the Emancipation Act of 1833. Without slave labor, it became impossible for the Cosways to uphold Coulibri's former glory as a sugar plantation. Even as a child, Antoinette herself understood this, and she drives the point home right after the garden description: "All Coulibri Estate had gone wild like the garden, gone to bush. No more slavery—why should anybody work?"
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Hour of Our Death:
As she describes her teenage years, Antoinette relies on a mixture of visual imagery and religious diction to conjure up the atmosphere of the convent. Some of her religious diction draws on allusions, to both traditional prayers and the Bible. Of the settings in the novel, the convent is the one that is described in the most decisively positive terms. Antoinette may feel ambivalent about the religious lessons that are taught there, but life is safe, clean, and orderly during this period of her life.
Remembering the "hot classroom," Antoinette recalls "the pitchpine desks" and "the heat of the bench striking up through my body along my arms and hands." Even if the classroom is hot, she sees "a cool, blue shadow on a white wall" outside. The cool shadow on the wall offers a sense of relief, and the wall implies protection. When inside the walls of the convent, Antoinette knows that she's safe.
This convent was my refuge, a place of sunshine and of death where very early in the morning the clap of a wooden signal woke the nine of us who slept in the long dormitory. We woke to see Sister Marie Augustine sitting, serene and neat, bolt upright in a wooden chair. The long brown room was full of gold sunlight and shadows of trees moving quietly. I learnt to say very quickly as the others did, "offer up all the prayers, works and sufferings of this day."
The wooden clap, composed nuns, straight lines, strong light, and whispered prayers capture the morning routine at the convent. Overall, the reader gets the impression that life at the convent is predictable and simple. The end of the passage quotes the Morning Offering, a Catholic prayer. Antoinette continues to intersperse her memories and thoughts with lines from prayers. The rhythmic quality of these prayers contributes to the orderly, peaceful atmosphere.
The rest of the morning routine evokes safety and serenity. Antoinette's description of the environment is intermingled with more snippets from prayers.
The smell of soap as you cautiously soaped yourself under the chemise, a trick to be learned, dressing with modesty, another trick. Great splashes of sunlight as we ran up the wooden steps of the refectory. Hot coffee and rolls and melting butter. But after the meal, now and at the hour of our death, and at midday and at six in the evening, now and at the hour of our death. Let perpetual light shine on them.
The first three sentences further develop the morning routine at the convent. Then, suddenly, the register changes, as the Hail Mary prayer cuts into her narration. The final line about perpetual light comes from the Prayer for the Dead. In this part, Rhys reproduces the way that prayers and recitations can interrupt or intermingle with the flow of one's internal monologue. An important Roman Catholic prayer, the Hail Mary praises Mary, the mother of Jesus. Throughout the convent section, Antoinette thinks about her mother.
Antoinette's time at the convent is the only part of her life in which she has a clear routine and has access to a consistent community. The bright, clean imagery gives a sense of her peace there, whereas the biblical diction imbues the narrative with some degree of discipline and ambivalence. Narrowing in on this duality, the lines from the Hail Mary draw a connection between the peace she finds in the convent with the peace she will find in death.
Related Themes:
Part 3
Explanation and Analysis—New Home:
In the third part, Grace Poole and Antoinette describe Thornfield Hall for the reader. Whereas Grace describes the house in positive terms, Antoinette describes her new home using bleak imagery and a stark metaphor. The women's contrasting descriptions of the house shed light on their varying levels of information. Grace is employed and knows what her role is at Thornfield; Antoinette has no idea where she is and even has a tenuous grasp on who she is.
In the italicized portion that opens the third part, Grace gives the reader some context about her role in the narrative. She metaphorically describes Thornfield as a "shelter," and uses imagery to describe the orderly grounds and inviting rooms.
After all the house is big and safe, a shelter from the world outside which, say what you like, can be a black and cruel world to a woman. [...] The thick walls, she thought. Past the lodge gate a long avenue of trees and inside the house the blazing fires and the crimson and white rooms. But above all the thick walls, keeping away all the things that you have fought till you can fight no more.
For Grace, the most appealing part of the house are the "thick walls" that protect one from the outside world. Whereas the world beyond it is "black and cruel," she finds the house "big and safe," full of warm fireplaces and bright rooms. Grace's description of Thornfield is reminiscent of Antoinette's description of the convent in the first part, where walls offer safety and stability. Thornfield, on the other hand, feels small and claustrophobic to Antoinette. Confined to a small room, she doesn't know where she is. The world beyond is not more black and cruel than her new home.
The reader gets this impression when Antoinette takes over the narration. She describes the room in dreary terms.
There is one window high up—you cannot see out of it. My bed had doors but they have been taken away. There is not much else in the room. Her bed, a black press, the table in the middle and two black chairs carved with fruit and flowers. They have high backs and no arms. The dressing-room is very small, the room next to this one is hung with tapestry.
This imagery gives the impression of stiff textures and cold surfaces. In addition, the room seems rather empty. Every item has a practical function, and the only decoration seems to be the engravings on the black chairs. These surroundings differ considerably from what Antoinette is used to. In Jamaica and Dominica, the rooms were large and airy, and the separation between inside and outside was quite permeable. There were often flowers inside, and the light was brilliant.
When Grace falls asleep, Antoinette explores the rest of the house. She metaphorically compares it to a world "made of cardboard." Refusing to believe that she's made it to England, she wishes she could see "what is behind the cardboard." Because she has no information about her whereabouts and no agency over her life, Antoinette loses her grip on reality. It is worth arguing that this is a more extreme version of the husband's alienation in Jamaica and Dominica. While he felt figuratively trapped and culturally lost, Antoinette is now literally trapped and lost. One of the few things she can assert with certainty is that "this cardboard house where I walk at night is not England."
Related Themes:
