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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
Chapter 1, Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Olfactory Imagery:
The word "smell" appears in Portrait over 30 times and ultimately comprises a huge portion of the novel's sensory imagery. Olfactory descriptions in its early chapters help illustrate the visceral experiences of childhood. In Chapter 1, Part 2, a young Stephen Dedalus dwells on the smell in a chapel:
There was a cold night smell in the chapel. But it was a holy smell. It was not like the smell of the old peasants who knelt at the back of the chapel at Sunday mass. That was a smell of air and rain and turf and corduroy.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sensory Contrasts:
Joyce uses imagery to establish motifs and cultivate thematic unity in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The most notable imagery in the first chapter is the visual and tactile juxtaposition of wetness and dryness. In Chapter 1, Part 2, young Stephen recalls being pushed into a ditch:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It would be nice to lie on the hearthrug before the fire, leaning his head upon his hands, and think on those sentences. He shivered as if he had cold slimy water next his skin. That was mean of Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch because he would not swop his little snuffbox for Wells’s seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror of forty.
Related Themes:
