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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 3
Explanation and Analysis—An Army in Pursuit:
When Provis is recounting what fleeing from the prison-barge he was being held on felt like, he alludes to images of the British army pursuing him through the fog using powerful sensory language. Provis's intense fear of capture makes him feel like a battalion of men is chasing him in Chapter 3, as he tells Pip:
“Why, see now!” said he. “When a man’s alone on these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears nothin’ all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ‘Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!’ and is laid hands on – and there’s nothin’! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night – coming up in order, Damn ’em, with their tramp, tramp – I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Gems and Dust:
When Pip Pirrip meets Miss Havisham, he tells the reader she is the "strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see." Dickens uses a great deal of descriptive language in Chapter 8 to contrast the richness of Havisham's environment and the decay she has let it fall into:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. [...] I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Wintry Branches :
Images of candlelight in Miss Havisham's museum-like house are paradoxically described as "dark" and "wintry" in two instances. When in Chapter 11 Havisham sends Pip into an unfamiliar room that contains the rotted remains of her wedding feast, the narrator relates that
Unlock with LitCharts A+Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber: or, it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness.
Book 2, Chapter 29
Explanation and Analysis—Wintry Branches :
Images of candlelight in Miss Havisham's museum-like house are paradoxically described as "dark" and "wintry" in two instances. When in Chapter 11 Havisham sends Pip into an unfamiliar room that contains the rotted remains of her wedding feast, the narrator relates that
Unlock with LitCharts A+Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber: or, it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness.
Explanation and Analysis—Insects and Decay:
Motifs of partial preservation and decay appear in almost every chapter of Great Expectations, but are often bookended with the vivid descriptions of hordes of insects, multitude of rodents, and colonies of thriving fungi in Satis House. Dickens uses these descriptions to link the natural cycles of life and development in this coming-of-age novel with Miss Havisham's bizarre choice to live in the past. When Pip enters the room where Havisham's wedding feast dries out and rots away, Dickens lavishly describes the skitter and scramble of living pests from the dead table:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I saw it written, as it were, in the falls of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their little quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and pausings of the beetles on the floor.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 33
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Statue:
Imagery of stone, sculpture, and statuary permeates sensory language and similes describing Estella Havisham. Dickens uses these chilly descriptions to highlight her emotional unavailability, and to show that her feelings have been trapped inside her cold, hard exterior. When Pip kisses her on the cheek in Chapter 33, he leans down
Unlock with LitCharts A+and her calm face was like a statue's.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 38
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Statue:
Imagery of stone, sculpture, and statuary permeates sensory language and similes describing Estella Havisham. Dickens uses these chilly descriptions to highlight her emotional unavailability, and to show that her feelings have been trapped inside her cold, hard exterior. When Pip kisses her on the cheek in Chapter 33, he leans down
Unlock with LitCharts A+and her calm face was like a statue's.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Insects and Decay:
Motifs of partial preservation and decay appear in almost every chapter of Great Expectations, but are often bookended with the vivid descriptions of hordes of insects, multitude of rodents, and colonies of thriving fungi in Satis House. Dickens uses these descriptions to link the natural cycles of life and development in this coming-of-age novel with Miss Havisham's bizarre choice to live in the past. When Pip enters the room where Havisham's wedding feast dries out and rots away, Dickens lavishly describes the skitter and scramble of living pests from the dead table:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I saw it written, as it were, in the falls of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their little quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and pausings of the beetles on the floor.
Related Themes:
