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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
Book 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Heard Before:
In this passage James Baldwin uses auditory imagery to show the disappointment Rufus feels when standing outside a jazz club and wondering if he should go in. He peers into the crowded bar, which features an unremarkable band playing familiar tunes in a way that disgusts him:
Now he stood before the misty doors of the jazz joint, peering in, sensing rather than seeing the frantic black people on the stand and the oblivious, mixed crowd at the bar. [...] So they blew what everyone had heard before, they reassured everyone that nothing terrible was happening, and the people at the tables found it pleasant to shout over this stunning corroboration and the people at the bar, under cover of the noise they could scarcely have lived without, pursued whatever it was they were after.
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Explanation and Analysis—The Venom:
As Rufus and Leona have sex for the first time, Rufus feels a nauseating mixture of hatred mixed with lust for her. Baldwin expresses this through a simile and some startling visual imagery. The way Rufus experiences her body and the act they perform together becomes inextricable from his feelings about racial difference and inequality:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Rufus opened his eyes for a moment and watched her face, which was transfigured with agony and gleamed in the darkness like alabaster. Tears hung in the corners of her eyes and the hair at her brow was wet. [...] Under his breath he cursed the milk-white [...] and groaned and rode his weapon between her thighs. She began to cry. A moan and a curse tore through him while he beat her with all the strength he had and felt the venom shoot out of him, enough for a hundred black-white babies.
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Explanation and Analysis—Seemed to Snarl:
Rufus feels tense as an Italian adolescent watches him with disdain when he sits in a park with Leona. Baldwin uses visual imagery and personification to show how hostilely the boy reacts to seeing a mixed-race couple spending time together:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Then he raised his eyes and met the eyes of an Italian adolescent. The boy was splashed by the sun falling through the trees. The boy looked at him with hatred; his glance flicked over Leona as though she were a whore; he dropped his eyes slowly and swaggered on—having registered his protest, his backside seemed to snarl, having made his point.
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Explanation and Analysis—White Officer:
In this passage from the novel’s first chapter, Baldwin uses visual imagery and a flashback to show the reader the power Rufus’s violent military memories still hold. Rufus is in the middle of a conversation with Leona when this recollection interrupts his thoughts:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He laughed again. He remembered, suddenly, his days in boot camp in the South and felt again the shoe of a white officer against his mouth. He was in his white uniform, on the ground, against the red, dusty clay. Some of his colored buddies were holding him, were shouting in his ear, helping him to rise. The white officer, with a curse, had vanished, had gone forever beyond the reach of vengeance. His face was full of clay and tears and blood; he spat red blood into the red dust.
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Book 2, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Bees and Thunder:
As he describes Eric sitting in the cottage garden in France, James Baldwin uses visual and auditory imagery and a simile to describe the idyllic scene. Eric is hovering between attempting to relax and worrying as he listens and watches for signs of Yves, who is swimming in the dangerously rough sea:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Eric sat naked in his rented garden. Flies buzzed and boomed in the brilliant heat, and a yellow bee circled his head. Eric remained very still [...] hoping that the smoke would drive the bee away. Yves’ tiny black-and-white kitten stalked the garden as though it were Africa, crouching beneath the mimosas like a panther and leaping into the air. The house and the garden overlooked the sea. Far down the slope, beyond the sand of the beach, in the thunderous blue of the Mediterranean, Yves’ head went under, reappeared, went under again.
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Book 3, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Really Black:
As Vivaldo mulls over Ida's infidelity, Baldwin uses visual imagery and metaphor to show Vivaldo’s confusion about the boundaries between black and white. Vivaldo stares into his cup, pondering his own formerly fixed ideas about the nature of color:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And he could not find himself, could not summon or concentrate enough of himself to make any sign at all. He stared into his cup, noting that black coffee was not black, but deep brown. Not many things in the world were really black, not even the night, not even the mines. And the light was not white, either, even the palest light held within itself some hint of its origins, in fire. He thought to himself that he had at last got what he wanted, the truth out of Ida [...]
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Book 3, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—The Sun Struck:
As Yves descends into New York on the plane at the end of the novel, the author uses visual imagery to show the reader what he sees during landing:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The sun struck, on steel, on bronze, on stone, on glass, on the gray water far beneath them, on the turret tops and the flashing windshields of crawling cars, on the incredible highways, stretching and snarling and turning for mile upon mile upon mile, on the houses, square and high, low and gabled, and on their howling antennae, on the sparse, weak trees, and on those towers, in the distance, of the city of New York.
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