Imagery

Definition of Imagery
Imagery means to use figurative language to represent objects, actions, and
ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses.

Usually it is thought that imagery makes use of particular words that create
visual representation of ideas in our minds. The word “imagery” is associated
with mental pictures. However, this idea is but partially correct. Imagery, to be
realistic, turns out to be more complex than just a picture. Read the following
examples of imagery carefully:

 It was dark and dim in the forest.

The words “dark” and “dim” are visual images.
 The children were screaming and shouting in the fields. 
“Screaming” and “shouting” appeal to our sense of hearing, or auditory
sense.
 He whiffed the aroma of brewed coffee.
“Whiff” and “aroma” evoke our sense of smell, or olfactory sense.
 The girl ran her hands on a soft satin fabric. 
The idea of “soft” in this example appeals to our sense of touch, or
tactile sense.
 The fresh and juicy orange is very cold and sweet.
“Juicy” and “sweet” – when associated with oranges – have an effect on
our sense of taste, or gustatory sense.

Imagery needs the aid of figures of speech

like simile, metaphor, personification, and onomatopoeia, in order to appeal to
the bodily senses. Let us analyze how famous poets and writers use imagery
in literature.

Short Examples of Imagery

1. The old man took the handful of dust, and sifted it through his fingers.
2. The starry night sky looked so beautiful that it begged him to linger, but
he reluctantly left for home.
3. The fragrance of spring flowers made her joyful.
4. The sound of a drum in the distance attracted him.
5. The people traveled long distances to watch the sunset in the north.
6. The stone fell with a splash in the lake.
 7. The sound of bat hitting the ball was pleasing to his ear.
8. The chirping of birds heralded spring.
9. There lay refuse heaps on their path that were so smelly that it
maddened them.
10. The silence in the room was unnerving.
11. The blind man touched the tree to learn if its skin was smooth or
rough.
12. When he was on the way to work, he heard the muffled cry of a
woman.
13. The beacons of moonlight bathed the room in ethereal light.
14. The wild gusts of cold wind pierced her body.
15. The burger, aromatic with spices, made his mouth water in
anticipation of the first bite.

Imagery Examples in Literature

Example #1: Romeo and Juliet (By William Shakespeare)

Imagery of light and darkness is repeated many times in

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Consider an example from Act I, Scene V:

“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear …”

Romeo praises Juliet by saying that she appears more radiant than the
brightly lit torches in the hall. He says that at night her face glows like a bright
jewel shining against the dark skin of an African. Through the contrasting
images of light and dark, Romeo portrays Juliet’s beauty.

Example #2: To Autumn (By John Keats)

John Keats’ To Autumn is an ode rich with auditory imagery examples. In the
last five lines of his ode he says:

“Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

The animal sounds in the above excerpt keep appealing to our sense of

hearing. We hear the lamb bleating and the crickets chirping. We hear the
whistles of the redbreast robin and the twitters of swallows in the skies. Keats
call these sounds the song of autumn.

Example #3: Once More to the Lake (By E. B. White)

In prose, imagery aids writers to accomplish a vivid description of events.

Below is an example of an effective use of imagery from E. B. White’s Once
More to the Lake:

“When the others went swimming my son said he was going in, too. He pulled
his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower
and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched
him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled
up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen
belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.”

The images depicting the dampness of clothes, in the above lines, convey a
sense of the chilly sensation that we get from wet clothes.

Example #4: Great Expectations (By Charles Dickens)

In Great Expectations, written by Charles Dickens, Pip (the hero of the novel)

uses many images to describe a damp morning in a marsh:

“It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the
outside of my little window… Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges
and spare grass, … On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy; and the marsh-
mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our
village—a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there—
was invisible to me until I was quite close under it.”

The repeated use of the words “damp” and “wet” makes us feel how miserable
it was for him that damp and cold morning. The thick “marsh-mist” aids our
imagination to visualize the scene of morning in a marshland.

Example #5: Goodbye Mr. Chips (By James Hilton)

“Brookfield he had liked, almost from the beginning. He remembered that day
of his preliminary interview—sunny June, with the air full of flower scents
and the plick-plock of cricket on the pitch. Brookfield was playing
Barnhurst, and one of the Barnhurst boys, a chubby little fellow, made a
brilliant century. Queer that a thing like that should stay in the memory so
clearly.”

This is an excellent example of the use of imagery in Goodbye Mr. Chips by

James Hilton. First the word sunny refers to the visual imagery. The flower
scent refers to the sense of smell, and then the plick-plock refers to the
sense of hearing.

Example #6: Daffodils (By William Wordsworth)

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

This is a very good example of imagery in Wordsworth’s Daffodils. The poet

uses the sense of sight to create a host of golden daffodils beside the lake.
Their fluttering and dancing also refers to the sight.

Example #7: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (By Robert Frost)

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep … “

Robert Frost uses visual imagery in these lines of his famous poem as, “the
woods are lovely, dark and deep.”

Example #8: My November Guest (By Robert Frost)

“My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walked the sodden pasture lane.”

This poem by Robert Frost is yet another good example of imagery. In the
second line, the poet uses dark days, which is an instance of the use of visual
imagery. In the fourth line, the bare, withered tree uses the imagery of sight.
In the fifth line, the sodden pasture is also an instance of tactile imagery.
Function of Imagery
The function of imagery in literature is to generate a vibrant and graphic
presentation of a scene that appeals to as many of the reader’s senses as
possible. It aids the reader’s imagination to envision the characters and
scenes in the literary piece clearly. Apart from the above-mentioned function,
images drawn by using figures of speech like metaphor, simile,
personification, and onomatopoeia, serve the function of beautifying a piece of
literature.
There are seven major types of imagery, each corresponding to a sense, feeling, action, or reaction:

 Visual imagery pertains to graphics, visual scenes, pictures, or the sense of sight.

 Auditory imagery pertains to sounds, noises, music, or the sense of hearing. (This kind of
imagery may come in the form of onomatopoeia).
 Olfactory imagery pertains to odors, scents, or the sense of smell.
 Gustatory imagery pertains to flavors or the sense of taste.
 Tactile imagery pertains to physical textures or the sense of touch.

Figures of Speech
Language can be used in two ways – literally and figuratively. Literal language is
direct and uses the real definition and meanings of words and phrases. But when we
talk figuratively, the meaning of any word/phrase will depend on the context in which
they are used. A figure of speech relies on such figurative language and rhetoric.

When using figures of speech the words will diverge from their literal meanings, to
give a more stylized and specialized meaning to these words. Let us take for example
the phrase”fast like lightning”. This phrase merely implies great speed, it does not
mean literally as fast as lightning. Example: “On hearing the school bell the kids ran
out of the class as fast as lightning”. 
 (Source: flickr)

Types of Figures of Speech

Now there are dozens of types of figures of speech. But here we will be focussing on
the five main ones we use in our daily prose.

1] Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that uses comparison. In a simile, we use two specific
words “like” and “as” to compare two unlikely things, that actually have nothing in
common. This is done to bring out the dramatic nature of the prose and invoke vivid
images and comparisons. It is one of the most common forms of a figure of speech and
is used in everything from day-to-day talk to poems.

Let us see some examples of simile. “She is as brave as a lion”. Here you will notice a
girl and her bravery are being compared to a lion. this is an unusual and illogical
comparison, but it brings out the vivid imagery and lyrical quality in the sentence. The
literal sentence would have read “She is brave”, but using the simile makes it sound
much better. Other such examples can be

 quite like a mouse

 as tall as a mountain

 as strong as an ox

 precious like an angel

2] Metaphor
A metaphor and a simile are quite similar actually. A metaphor also uses compares to
things that are in no way similar. It does so to bring out the symbolism. A metaphor is
a word or phrase used to show its similarity to another thing. It helps to explain an
idea, but if you take a metaphor at its literal meaning it will sound absurd.

An example of a metaphor is “Alex is a chicken”. Literally, this sounds so very absurd.

But this is a metaphor which suggests that Alex is a coward, or frightened. It compares
or implies that Alex is a chicken to bring out the symbolism. Some other examples are
‘love is a battlefield”, “all the world’s a stage”, “that technology is a dinosaur” etc.

While a simile and metaphor seem to be very similar, there is one basic difference
between the two. In a simile, the comparison happens with the help of the words “as”
and “like”. A metaphor will not have either of those two words.

3] Personification
Another very interesting figure of speech is personification. In this, we personify or
represent a non-human entity as human. We give an inanimate object or an intangible
idea of some human qualities such as emotions, or gestures or even speech. this is done
to portray the object as alive and help the listener or reader paint a vivid picture. Again,
if we take the words at their literal meaning they will sound absurd.

“The wind howled as the storm grew stronger”. Here we have taken an object, the
wind, and personified it as a living thing by claiming it howled. Other such examples
could be, “time ran away from him”, “the boat danced in the puddle”, “the car died in
the middle of the road” etc.

4] Hyperbole
Hyperbole in the Greek language translates to ‘excess’. And that is what it does, it
exaggerates. We use hyperboles to emphasize the importance or the overstate
something. This exaggerates claims and statements are never meant to be taken at their
literal meaning. They are used to create a strong and lasting impression

An example would be “Since he has been away from home he has gotten as thin as a
toothpick“. Obviously, he has not gotten as thin as a toothpick, we only exaggerate to
emphasize on how thin he has become. Some other examples are, “Those shoes cost a
king’s ransom”, “For the millionth time, clean the kitchen”, “his grandfather is older
than the hills”.

5] Onomatopeia 
This is a figure of speech where words or phrases indicate sounds. Often to bring about
more imagery and better describe a setting, authors use words to involve all five of our
senses. Onomatopeia refers to those words that imitate the sounds of an object or
person.

For example “The bees buzzed around in the garden”. Here the word ‘buzzed’ is
indicating the sound coming from the bees. Some other examples are “the leaves were
rustling”, “the door was squeaking”, “he closed the book with a thud” etc.

Learn the difference between ‘Single Inverted Comma and Double Inverted Comma.”

Solved Question for You

Q: Identify the figure of speech in the following

a. The cat ran away like the wind

b. Suddenly in the middle of the night, the dog started barking.
c. Variety is the spice of life
Ans: The figures of speech are as follows

a. Simile. The cat (and its speed) speed is compared to the wind. And since the
word ‘like’ is used, it is a simile
b. Onomatopeia. Barking is a word that indicates sound.
c. Metaphor. Here the two things are compared without the use of ‘as’ or ‘like’.
The sentence indicates that one of the things is similar to the other.