Imagery

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

It is commonly believed that images use certain words that create a visual representation of ideas in our minds. Images ”is associated with mental images. However, this idea is only partially correct. Pictures, to be realistic, turn out to be more complex than just a picture. Read the following examples of images carefully:

It was dark and dark The forest.
The words “dark” and “dark” are visual images.
The children screamed and shouted in the fields.
“Scream” and “Scream” appeal our hearing or hearing.
He smelled the aroma of brewed coffee.
"Smell" and "aroma" evoke our sense of smell, or sense of smell.
The girl ran her hands over a soft satin cloth.
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, has an effect on our sense of taste, or gustatory sense.
Imagery needs the help of figures of speech such as simile, metaphor, personification and onomatopoeia, in order to appeal to the bodily senses. Let's discuss how famous poets and writers use images in literature.

Brief examples of images
The old man took the handful of dust and sifted it between his fingers.
The starry night sky It looked so beautiful that he begged her to stay, but reluctantly went home.
The fragrance of spring flowers made her happy.
The sound of a drum in the distance attracted him.
People traveled long distances to watch the sunset in the north.
The stone fell into the lake with a splash.
The sound of a bat hitting the ball pleased his ear .
The chirping of birds heralded spring.
On their way were piles of garbage that were so stinky that they went crazy.
The silence in the room was unsettling.
The blind man touched the tree to see whether his skin was smooth or rough was.
When he was out to work he heard the muffled scream of a woman.
The beacons of the moonlight bathed the room in an ethereal light.
Wild gusts of cold wind pierced his body.
The spicy-scented burger made her mouth water in anticipation of the first bite.
Examples of images in literature
Example # 1: Romeo and Juliet (By William Shakespeare)
The image of light and darkness is repeated. many times in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Consider an example from Act I, Scene V:

“Oh, she teaches torches to burn bright!
she It seems that she hangs on the cheek of the night
Like a rich jewel in the ear of an Ethiopian ... ”

Romeo praises Juliet saying that she seems more radiant than the lit torches in the hall; she says that at night her face shines like a brilliant jewel that glows against the dark skin of an African. Through contrasting images of light and dark, Romeo portrays Juliet's Beauty.

Example # 2: To Autumn (by John Keats)
'To Autumn by John Keats is an ode rich in examples of auditory imagery. In the last five lines of his ode it says:
“Either sink as the light wind lives or dies;
And adult lambs roar loudly from the hills;
The crickets in the hedges sing; and now with soft treble.
. Red breasts hiss from a garden,
. And the gathering swallows chirp in the skies. ”

The animal sounds in the previous excerpt continue to attract our sense of hearing. We hear the lamb grumble and the crickets chirp. We hear the whistling of the robin and the chirping of the swallows in the sky. Keats call these sounds the song of autumn)
In prose, pictures help writers create a vivid description of events. Below is an example of an effective use of images from E. White's Back to the Lake:

“When the others were going swimming, my son said he was going in. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line that had hung them throughout the shower and wrung them out. Lengthy and without thinking of going in, I saw him, his hard little body, thin and naked, saw him flinch slightly as he pulled the small, damp, icy garment around his life points. As he buckled the swollen belt, my groin suddenly felt the cold of death.

The images depicting the dampness of clothing, in the lines above, convey the sensation of cold we experience with wet clothing.

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 wet morning in a swamp:

“It was a rhyming morning, and very damp. I had seen the humidity on the outside of my little window ... Now, I saw the humidity on the bare hedges and the free grass, ... On every rail and door, the humidity was sticky; and the swamp mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the pole that led people to our village, a direction they never accepted, because they never got there, was invisible to me until I was very close under it. ”

The use of the words" wet "and" wet "makes us feel how miserable it was for him that damp and cold morning. The thick "marsh fog" helps our imaginations visualize the morning scene in a marsh.

Example # 5: Goodbye Mr. Chip (by James Hilton)
"He had liked Brookfield, almost from the beginning. He remembered that The day of their preliminary interview, sunny June, the air filled with floral scents and the plick-plock of cricket on the court. Brookfield was playing Barnhurst, and one of Barnhurst's boys, a plump little man, made a brilliant century. I would like something like this to stay in the memory so clearly. ”

This is an excellent example of the use of images in Goodbye Ms. Chips from James Hilton. First of all, the word sunny refers to the visual images. The floral scent relates to the sense of smell, and then the plick-plock relates to the sense of hearing.

Example 6: Daffodils (by William Wordsworth)
“I wandered lonely like a cloud A very good example of images in Wordsworth's daffodils. The poet uses the sense of sight to create a multitude of golden daffodils next to the lake. Their fluttering and dancing also relates to the sight.

Example 7: Stopping by the forest on a snowy evening (By Robert Frost)
"The forest is beautiful, dark and deep,
But I promised to keep ..."

Robert Frost used in these Lines of his famous poem visual images like: “The forest is beautiful, dark and deep.”

Example # 8: My November guest (by Robert Frost)
“My Sor row, when she is here with me,
D thinks of those dark days of the Autumn rain
Are as beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, withered tree;
She walked the sodden willow.

This poem by Robert Frost is another good example of images. On the second line, the poet uses dark days, which is an example of the use of visual images. On the fourth line, the bare, withered tree uses the images of sight. On the fifth line, the sodden willow is also an example of tactile images.

Function of images
The function of images in literature is to create a vivid and graphic representation of a scene that appeals to as many of the reader's senses as possible. It supports the reader's imagination to imagine the characters and scenes in the literary piece. Apart from the above-mentioned function, pictures drawn with linguistic figures such as metaphor, simile, personification and onomatopoeia serve to embellish a piece of literature.

Bias Motif