Definition of Imagery
After the child falls asleep in the woods, the narrator describes the scene using imagery and personification, as seen in the following passage:
The wood birds sang merrily above his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature’s victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers.
In the final lines of the story, the narrator uses imagery to capture the child’s distress upon finding his mother’s dead body:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries — something between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey — a startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute.
Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck.