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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
Key Examples in A Separate Peace
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Unity of Strength:
When Gene looks at or remembers Finny’s body, he’s always implicitly comparing it to his own. In the novel's first flashback, in Chapter 1, he shows this clearly in the visual imagery he uses to describe Finny’s muscles:
He weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, a galling ten pounds more than I did, which flowed from his legs to torso around shoulders to arms and full strong neck in an uninterrupted, unemphatic unity of strength.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sailing Tolls:
In this scene from the first chapter of the novel, the author employs visual and auditory imagery and a metaphor to evoke the tranquil atmosphere of the Devon School’s grounds for the reader. As Gene, Finny, and their friends walk across the grass, Gene describes what he sees and hears:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I went along beside him across the enormous playing fields toward the gym. Underfoot the healthy green turf was brushed with dew, and ahead of us we could see a faint green haze hanging above the grass, shot through with the twilight sun [...] over all, cool and matriarchal, the six o’clock bell from the Academy Building cupola, the calmest, most carrying bell toll in the world, civilized, calm, invincible, and final. The toll sailed over the expansive tops of all the elms [...] across the open New Hampshire sky to us coming back from the river.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Shores of Eden:
In Chapter 4, as he wakes up on the beach next to a sleeping Finny, Gene uses visual imagery and allusion to describe the experience of seeing the shore at dawn for the first time:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The ocean perked up a little from the reflection of these colored slivers in the sky. Bright high lights shone on the tips of waves, and beneath its gray surface I could see lurking a deep midnight green. The beach shed its deadness and became a spectral gray-white, then more white than gray, and finally it was totally white and stainless, as pure as the shores of Eden.
Related Themes:
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Smoking Room:
Gene uses gray, unappealing visual imagery to convey the dismal atmosphere of the "Butt Room," the Devon School's smoking room:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The school’s policy, in order to discourage smoking, was to make these rooms as depressing as possible. The windows near the ceiling were small and dirty, the old leather furniture spilled its innards, the tables were mutilated, the walls ash-colored, the floor concrete.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Grey and Gurgling:
While the Devon School is idyllic in summer, in the harsh New England winters its rural remoteness make it feel like a prison between autumn and spring. In Chapter 9, as Gene describes this feeling of entrapment and the change in the school’s atmosphere after Leper enlists, he employs imagery, a metaphor, and hyperbole:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And these Saturdays are worst in the late winter when the snow has lost its novelty and its shine, and the school seems to have been reduced to only a network of drains. During the brief thaw in the early afternoon there is a dismal gurgling of dirty water seeping down pipes and along gutters [...] Shrubbery loses its bright snow headgear and stands bare and frail, too undernourished to hide the drains it was intended to hide.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Blessing:
Despite how ugly the atmosphere within it sometimes is, the exterior of the Devon School is sublimely beautiful. Here, in Chapter 13, Knowles deploys similes to describe the serene, idyllic atmosphere of the school one summer day:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Around them spread a beautiful New England day. Peace lay on Devon like a blessing, the summer’s peace, the reprieve, New Hampshire’s response to all the cogitation and deadness of winter. There could be no urgency in work during such summers; any parachutes rigged would be no more effective than napkins.
Related Themes:
