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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
Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Order and Disorder:
Early in the first part, McEwan develops Briony and Cecilia as foils for one another, which foreshadows their impending rift. The differences between the Tallis sisters—cemented through imagery, metaphors, and similes—fuel the motif of order versus disorder. Whereas Briony loves tidiness and regularity, Cecilia feels at home in the very opposite. McEwan connects Cecilia's cluttered room to her distaste for familiarity and her desire to break free from her family.
McEwan uses descriptions of the sisters' bedrooms to emphasize their differences. In the first chapter, the reader gets an impression of Briony through her personal space.
Whereas her big sister’s room was a stew of unclosed books, unfolded clothes, unmade bed, unemptied ashtrays, Briony’s was a shrine to her controlling demon: the model farm spread across a deep window ledge consisted of the usual animals, but all facing one way—toward their owner—as if about to break into song, and even the farmyard hens were neatly corralled.
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Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Last Gleam of the Sea:
The end of the second part is marked by a dream-like atmosphere, as the extreme exhaustion of Robbie and the other retreating soldiers intermingles with their relief at having made it to the coast. McEwan relies on hazy, ethereal imagery to build the reader's impression of being in a dream, which contrasts with the stark and dreary language he uses earlier in the second part.
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Part 3
Explanation and Analysis—Bearing Fruit:
When the wounded soldiers finally arrive at the hospital, Briony is inundated with work. McEwan uses imagery and similes to evoke the physical and psychological intensity of the first day of caring for the soldiers. In many of the passages, vivid and distressing bodily imagery comes coupled with comparisons to fruit. Through this, McEwan both gives the reader a sense of Briony's revulsion to the bodies in front of her and her numbness to the severe trauma she is witnessing.
The first time Briony enters her ward after the arrival of the soldiers, she watches the nurses speedily and effectively do their jobs:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The sisters moved between the beds swiftly, giving injections—probably morphine—or administering the transfusion needles to connect the injured to the vacolitres of whole blood and the yellow flasks of plasma that hung like exotic fruits from the tall mobile stands.
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