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Hyperbole
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
Progress Report 10
Explanation and Analysis—Fuzzy Cloud:
As Charlie recalls an early memory of looking at comic books before he could read, the narrator uses visual imagery and metaphor to bring the scene to life for the reader. In this memory, the Charlie of the present recalls the past Charlie’s childhood struggle with reading and his fascination with the pictures on the pages of his books:
As he starts to turn the pages, he feels like crying, but he doesn’t know why. What is there to feel sad about? The fuzzy cloud comes and goes, and now he looks forward to the pleasure of the brightly colored pictures in the comic book that he has gone through thirty, forty times [...] he understands that the strange forms of letters and words in the white balloons above the figures means that they are saying something. Would he ever learn to read what was in the balloons?
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Progress Report 12
Explanation and Analysis—City at Night:
Keyes uses visual imagery and metaphor in this passage to link Charlie’s nighttime wanderings with his restless search for meaning as he grows smarter. Charlie, driven by a need he cannot name, walks through the city at night and gazes at the lights that fill the skyline.
Unlock with LitCharts A+What drives me out of the apartment to prowl through the city? I wander through the streets alone—not the relaxing stroll of a summer night, but the tense hurry to get—where? [...] Searching . . . for what? I met a woman in Central Park. She was sitting on a bench near the lake, with a coat clutched around her despite the heat. We looked at the bright skyline on Central Park South, the honeycomb of lighted cells against the blackness, and I wished I could absorb them all.
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Progress Report 16
Explanation and Analysis—Colors Glow:
This colorful, almost psychedelic passage follows Charlie’s winding thoughts as his enormous intelligence allows him to see the world in a new way. Keyes employs hyperbole and visual imagery to show Charlie’s heightened state of mind:
Unlock with LitCharts A+About my perception: everything is sharp and clear, each sensation heightened and illuminated so that reds and yellows and blues glow. [...] It is impossible to tell what proportion is memory and what exists here and now—so that a strange compound is formed of memory and reality; past and present; response to stimuli stored in my brain centers, and response to stimuli in this room. It’s as if all the things I’ve learned have fused into a crystal universe spinning before me so that I can see all the facets of it reflected in gorgeous bursts of light.
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Explanation and Analysis—Surveying the Land:
Keyes uses hyperbole and visual imagery in this passage to capture Charlie’s awareness that his intelligence stands at a dangerous turning point. Charlie describes feeling that everything around him is holding still as he waits for the coming change to arrive.
Unlock with LitCharts A+Everything around me is waiting. I dream of being alone on the top of a mountain, surveying the land around me, greens and yellows—and the sun directly above, pressing my shadow into a tight ball around my legs. As the sun drops into the afternoon sky, the shadow undrapes itself and stretches out toward the horizon, long and thin, and far behind me. . .
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