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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
Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—Dead Letters:
In the final lines of the story, the Lawyer explains what dead letters are (after it has been revealed that Bartley used to work for the Dead Letter office), using imagery in the process:
Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? [...] Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifling by unrelieved calamities.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Prison Yard:
Near the end of the story, when Bartleby is imprisoned at the Tombs, the Lawyer visits him. In his narration, the lawyer captures the experience of being in the prison yard with Bartleby using imagery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the common prisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off all sounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed upon me with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew underfoot. The heart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, through the lefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung.
Related Themes:
